Liturgical miscues and mishmash!
December 26, 2010, 1:11 pm
Posted by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
I am not generally a liturgical fuss budget, but what a mess we are up for. Today’s Holy Family celebration had a reading in which the Magi having departed, Joseph has a dream and flees with the family to Egypt–notwithstanding that magi and camels are still on the other side of the altar (probably just edging across the Jordan River).
And then, Roman-rite wise, the magi arrive on January 2 (next Sunday, the Epiphany), six days before they are said to have arrived, and with the family already in Egypt (per today’s reading).
Who’s in charge here? The same crowd that has done the new mistranslation?
Uh-oh. Tomorrow is the feast of St. John the Evangelist, who probably hadn’t been born yet. And when it’s not a Sunday, Dec. 26th is the Feast of Stephen, who died after Jesus.
Perhaps there is such a thing as being too linear?
Perhaps. And perhaps there is such a thing as not paying attention to the narrative.
Interestingly, when the Magi arrive, they find “the Babe and his mother.”
Maybe that was during St. Joseph’s nap.
Dear Margaret,
While I certainly agree with you, things are only going to “get better” (irony intended). Next year, we have the new Roman missal with which to contend. The ‘mismashed readings and feastdays will seem like small potatoes compared to that.
The PTB (powers that be, irony intended) seem to be challenged in getting and keeping stories straight, generally speaking. Whatever were “they” (whoever they be) thinking in transferring January 6 to a Sunday, no matter what?
The National Association of Catholic Family Life Ministers [NACFLM] twenty years ago asked that the feast of the Holy Family be moved to the summer/ spring time so that proper attention could made and maybe the ancient concept of Domestic Church would have a chance to be promulgated. Answer ? No. The Domestic Church concept ought to be seized upon during this world wide hierarchal meltdown; it would resonate well with the increasing Latino and Asian family people. Maybe the married deacons who administer the sacraments of baptism and marriage within their own family could be advocates that these sacraments be administered also within ALL families. No doctrinal changes just common sense. Forget about same sex secular marriage and send out DVDs on Domestic Church.
It’s a pure accident of the calendar, and someone could probably figure out when it’s going to happen again.
Myles Bourke used to call today’s feast “Sociology Sunday”. He wasn’t a fan of the idea, thought up by Leo XIII, it seems.
And how right he was! We had a panorama of family sociology in this morning’s sermon!
I’m with Kathy on this on, and I don’t see any problem. In fact I think there’s something at stake in understanding why this is not a problem. The liturgical year is not an exact sequence of the life of Christ and it’s not intended to give a theatrical drama of historical events. It is the sacramental making present of the whole mystery of salvation, even as one aspect of it is focussed on somewhat for a given feast. Obviously the Resurrection didn’t happen 3 or 4 months after the birth of Christ. I know you know this, Peg, but I’m not sure our people understand the difference between a Passion Play and the church’s celebration of the Triduum, and I fear many of them “get more out of” the former.
Fr. Komonchak – unless if I’m missing something, I don’t think this is an accident of the calendar. Holy Famly is always between Dec 25 and Jan 1, always before the Epiphany (whether on 1/6 or transferred to Sunday), and the Gospel reading for Holy Family is the same in all three years of the lectionary.
Christmas blessings to all,
Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB
“The liturgical year is not an exact sequence of the life of Christ and it’s not intended to give a theatrical drama of historical events. It is the sacramental making present of the whole mystery of salvation, even as one aspect of it is focused on somewhat for a given feast.”
Hmmm! Well yes, I do get that. Q. Why do people get more out of a “passion play,” than Easter (though I can’t say I know any)? A. Because there is a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Linear thinking!!
However, (pace Kathy) the overlay of saints’ days is a red herring. Don’t they generally fall into secondary positions in case of major feasts? We wouldn’t expect to celebrate Saint Patrick’s day on Easter should that unlikely juxtaposition occur. Without absolving myself of being too “linear,” I wonder about coherence. Perhaps the liturgical establishment is a bit too much on auto-pilot.
Fr. K., Fr. Ruff is right. Actually, in the current lectionary in cycles B and C there are two other options for Gospels. The option for cycle B takes place 40 days after Jesus’ birth, and the option for cycle C is twelve years later!
There are two very linear moments in the Liturgy: the birth of Jesus Christ 9 months to the day after the Annunciation–unless March 25 was in Holy Week that year–and the birth of Mary 9 months to the day after the Immaculate Conception–unless Dec. 8 was on a Sunday that year.
So you see, it all makes perfect sense…
” Next year, we have the new Roman missal with which to contend. The ‘mismashed readings and feastdays will seem like small potatoes compared to that.”
If the Church could handle the incomparably more substantial revisions to the Mass resulting from Vatican II, I’m quite sure she can handle the corrected translations next Advent.
Fr. Ruff is correct about the calendar. But the post-Magi Gospel is not always read on Holy Family Sunday. I agree about the difference between the liturgy and a passion play.
In today’s second reading, the first part is more interesting and inspiring than the second part, what the scholars call the “household code”.
Here’s a site where you can find artistic representations of the flight into Egypt, from the 10th to the 20th century. http://www.artbible.net/3JC/-Mat-02,13-Escape%20to%20Egypt_Fuite%20en%20Egypte/index.html
I think this feast day (whenever it is celebrated) poses an interesting challenge to the concept of the ideal (and especially holy) family:
A woman who is not pregnant by her husband/betrothed/espoused/whatever.
A man told by an angel to go along and get along.
A child that is certainly not a model of the “ideal” child by any stretch of the imagination.
Jimmy Mac: Yes, that was more or less the theme of our family round-up in this morning’s sermon, leading me to wonder if the theme these days isn’t, “All families are dysfunctional in their own way,” including the Holy Family.
Now I see the problem. Egads.
The Cycle C readings are unequivocally Christological. Samuel is presented in the temple, Psalm 84 (How lovely is your dwelling place), the deep promises of the letters of John, and the finding of Jesus in the temple. The Christmas question of “who can this be?” continues to be asked. Especially on Dec. 26, that would be nice.
It is indeed unfortunate that we cannot follow the life of Christ chronologically in the readings. On the other hand, we do follow it 3 times and 3 different ways in as many years.
Though I am not privy to the thoughts of those who set forth the 3-year lectionary, I do find myself occasionally questioning the order of certain reading as set forth for the ‘Liturgy of the Word’. However, I long ago assigned the inherent problems of following the Life of Christ through the lectionary to the same part of my brain that tries to reconcile the 7-Day Creation story with the reality of our omniverse. In short, I try not to think about it.
Christmas on the 25th, Holy Family on the 26th, Mary, Mother of God on the 1st and Epiphany on the 2nd represent a challenge to chronology (to say nothing of Liturgical Planning and Preaching!!!), but since we have fixed and moveable feasts to reconcile with an unmoveable international calendar, this is an unfortunate byproduct.
I haven’t even looked at next Christmas which along with Mary, Mother of God, will be celebrated on a Sunday. That means, technically, that to celebrate Epiphany on a Sunday would make it 2 days late (8th).
For those of us who work in Church, 2012 will be a treat since the leap year means the Christmas Day will jump from a Sunday (2011) to a Tuesday, so we will be in Church the 22, 23, 24, 25 of December, and then again on the 29, 20, 31, and Jan 1 2013.
Just like last year!
At least we can count on Easter to straighten out our calendars… (oops, guess not)
I happen to be reading Jean-Pierre Torrell’s book, St. Thomas Aquinas, Spiritual Master, in a chapter discussing the causality of the mysteries of Christ’s life, including hidden mysteries, for salvation. He writes:
“Someone may ask, perhaps, what there is in the mysteries of Christ’s hidden life that is not explicitly reproduced in the sacraments and has this salvific efficacy as well. Even though not sacramental in the broad sense, we might certainly think of their liturgical commemoration, for it is one of the privileged places where the faith is expressed and nourished. It is enough to have participated in the celebration of the Christmas or Easter office in a monastic community or in a devout environment ot understand that there is in them an actualization of the mystery being celebrated whose effect is interiorized by prayer. The theology of the memorial, sometimes restricted to the Eucharist, allows this extension beyond all doubt: today Christ is born…today He is risen…today He ascends to heaven… What is true in an eminent way of public prayer is also true of personal prayer. It suffices here to imagine the meditation on the scenes of Christ’s life beloved by St. Ignatius and others. But one would be wrong to restrict this to explicitly religious acts. Fraternal service or charitable acts are also places where Jesus, true God and true man, continues the efficacious action of grace that his physical presence was for his contemporaries.” (p. 140)
Footnoting his last point, Torrell quotes Lumen Gentium 46: “Religious should carefully keep before their minds the fact that the Church presents Christ to believers and non-believers alike in a striking manner daily through them. The Church thus portrays Christ in contemplation on the mountain, in His proclamation of the kingdom of God to the multitudes, in His healing of the sick and maimed, in His work of converting sinners to a better life, in His solicitude for youth and His goodness to all men, always obedient to the will of the Father who sent Him.”
This citation is itself weightily footnoted in LG: S. Hieronymus, Epist. 22, 21: PL 22, 408. Cfr. S. Augwtinus, Serm. Sl, 2, 3: PL 38, 33S; Serm. 232, 2: col. 1108. – S. Cyrillus Hieros., Catech. 12, 15: PG 33, 741 AB. – S. Io. Chrysostomus, In Ps. 44, 7: PG SS, 193. – S. Io. Damasccnus, Nom. 2 in dorm. B.M.V., 3: PG 96, 728.
We have here an excellent example of the divergences of the ordinary experience of the liturgy and the high theological interpretation of it. We are fortunate when they are congruent. Today, it seems not to have happened. But apparently we can look forward to 2011.
Like Kathy and Fr Anthony, I also see no problem with this. We have some dollops of literalism, like the Annunciation in the middle of Lent, nine months before the Nativity. Cousin John is carefully aligned six months away.
It’s also why we can sing of Magi on Christmas.
Problem? perhaps not to some; distraction to others, yes. And we do not sing “We three kings of …,” until January 6, or the movable date on which they may appear–apparently January 2, 2011, in the Roman rite. I think you ministerial types need to think a bit more about liturgy, narrative, and coherence.
Ms. Steinfels – had to lector this morning and so spent more attention to the readings pre, today, and post this week-end. Understand completely what Fr. Ruff is saying but also feel the tension because the “liturgical calendar” creates a situation in which multiple feasts are crammed together in a short span of time.
Not sure if the three year lectionary considered the Feast of the Holy Family between Christmas and January 1st.was put together with this type of “calendar” in mind. Fr. Ruff – can you comment on that? Guessing that the lectionary folks didn’t consider “linear” events and so put together the readings and feasts the way they did – or was this separated – readings and then the liturgical calendar?
You highlight just the Feast of the Holy Family – but would suggest that Rome all too often has created/elevated a number of feasts during this Christmas season in the last 100 years – so, we have possible overlays and disconnects with Christmas, Holy Family, Jan. 1st seems to have multiple titles (World Peace?); Baptism of the Lord; Epiphany. The Latin Rite has traditionally focused on Christmas and yet our Eastern half focuses on the Ephiphany. Too often in the Latin Rite, both the Baptism of the Lord and Epiphany feel like afterthoughts – many parishes basically end the Christmas season, decorations, music with January 1st?
It is a challenge for preachers when they have this type of “calendar” and events follow one day after another. Have always felt that there is a rythmn to preaching and trying to have a “great” Christmas homily followed the next day by Holy Family is stretching things – it may be why you experienced a “sociological” sermon? Then again, as Fr. K said, the “household code” creates some issues in this day and time. Not sure that is even the relevant or central insight of today’s feast.
Since we only use one cycle at a time – at least most folks don’t suddenly hear the different nativity stories from Matthew and Luke – shoot, there is not a flight to Egypt in one cycle….does this mean we skip this problem? Or, does that mean it didn’t happen? Or, does it mean that the homilist needs to go beyond the simple retelling and get to the insights and meaning? (ah yes, the real challenge in our church today – a good homily)
Fr. K – would love to hear more about Leo XIII and Myles reaction. It appears that his adding the Holy Family continues today with recent popes and feasts. I do sympathize with pastors who have to negotiate our liturgical calendar along with diocesan campaigns, USCCB campaigns, etc.
Today’s Gospel is the Resurrection!
I think the mysteries of the year have to be allowed to be what they are. Like the Bible, they have their own logic. Reading some biblical passages (2nd Isaiah, for example) can be unsettling, not only because of the message, but because of the abrupt shifts in tone, audience, and subject.
Good preaching sure helps.
And finally….What of good King Wenceslas, out on the feast of Stephen? Crushed in the rush to Egypt!
(” Next year, we have the new Roman missal with which to contend. The ‘mismashed readings and feastdays will seem like small potatoes compared to that.”
If the Church could handle the incomparably more substantial revisions to the Mass resulting from Vatican II, I’m quite sure she can handle the corrected translations next Advent.
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“SHE”, oh, you mean the 4% that make up the “Official Church”—clergy, arch/bishops, etc. I am speaking of the other 96% who make up the Body of Christ—the laity.
In my neck of the woods—the priests have a get together with one another the day before the new ordo takes effect. They toss the old ordos into a bonfire and then (depending on the weather), roast hot dogs over the fire and have a swig or two. In this coming Advent of 2011—they are going to toss the old sacramentaries into the fire along with the ordos, and pray that their parishioners don’t decide to toss the new missalettes in the pews into a fire or throw them down in the pews in disgust.
The priests don’t look forward to being glued to reading from the sacramentary without being able to look at their parishioners, as they have been doing. The Readings for next Christmas Season—-and the sequence? I don’t believe that they will be the topic of discussion at all.
I think that the feast of the Holy Family being placed right after the nativity seems completely logical. It does seem a bit rushed but the activity an drama associated with his birth seems a perfect corollary to the activity and drama of his death and resurrection.
Besides, I was particularly drawn to these gospels given that I feel somewhat called to reflect on the life of St. Joseph who receives so little attention in scripture and tradition. Eastern tradition holds that he is a much older man but we really do not know. Too bad we did not borrow the tradition of the Hebrew midrash which might fill out some details.
What I find interesting is that Joseph has to rely on his own intuition and dreams and that God does use him to direct the family. Additionally, even though he was a carpenter (or even lesser tradesman), he is keenly aware of the politics of the time.
I also do find it somewhat ironic that the Catholic family holds the holy family as models of family life but when you really begin to unpack it, it is an unconventional family indeed! But on the other hand, each has their mission and they seem to support each other in living it out.
Maybe it’s because I’m (at least at times) a ministerial type, but I’m with Kathy and Fr. Anthony on this one. As near as I can tell, the liturgical year does not operate on a narrative principle. If it did, Advent would have to follow upon Pentecost (with maybe Christ the King wedged in between). At best, it is an oddly fractured narrative, in which the story of the cross and resurrection is plopped down into the middle of Jesus’ life (now there’s some food for theological reflection).
I can appreciate Peggy having a sense of narrative dislocation this year, but perhaps she ought to see it as simply a fitting participation in the Holy Family’s dislocation as they fled into Egypt
What happens to narrative coherence when we get to Epiphany, which celebrates:
1> the Magi
2>the Baptism of Jesus
3> the miracle at Cana.
The Roman rite spreads these out over 3 weekends now, but they are all epiphanies that are celebrated as Epiphany.
If there is no narrative coherence, it is because these events represent the beginnings of three separate narratives, Matthew, Mark and John.
These three epiphanies are celebrated in the antiphons for the Gospel canticles of both Morning Prayer and Vespers:
“Today, the Bridegroom claims his Bride, the Church, since Christ has washed her sins away in Jordan’s waters, the Magi hasten with their gifts to the royal wedding, and the wedding guests rejoice, for Christ has changed water into wine. Alleluia!”
“Three mysteries mark this holy day:
Today, the star leads the magi to the infant Christ;
Today, water is changed into wine for the wedding feast,
Today, Christ wills to be baptized by John in the Jordan River
To bring us salvation.”
@Peggy on 12/26.
I head this mentioned in a homily many years ago on this feast and have never forgotten it. This dose of theological reality puts a believable perspective on things, especially when the nuclear family of a husband, wife, 2 adoring children (one of each, of course) and a Volvo in the driveway are held up as the absolutely ideal kind of family. Of course, we won’t talke about the divorce rate found therein.
The liturgical year is largely a construct. Tell me the meaning of Ordinary Time. Does that mean time out or what? Easter or the celebration of the Resurrection following the Crucifixion is the central event of our faith. Yet it is sharply overwhelmed by Christmas. With Europe and other parts of the world abandoning the faith, shouldn’t the church announce that it will not longer celebrate Christmas. Not that will get everyone’s attention. After all it is the taking over of polytheistic holiday. As we know the experience of Christmas is quite different in many parts of the world. If we take Christmas off the calendar then we will not have the interminable callings to put Christ back into Christmas. We will focus everything on Easter which is the event.
If anyone is taken aback by this see Peter Steinfels.
This way no one will ever take Christ out of Easter. If the Easter Bunny hasn’t who can? And you know no one will buy anything of similar magnitude on Good Friday.
If you’re interested in keeping to a narrativistic chronology, surely January 1 should be the Feast of the Circumcision, as it was until 1960 (I think?) I am not quite sure why the change was made.
And, of course, Epiphany should be returned to January 6, where it belongs, and not celebrated on the nearest convenient Sunday, as if it was, for instance, Columbus Day.
Thank you Nicholas; my point exactly.
I’m with Myles Bourke, cited by Joe Komonchak. In my experience, the “idea feasts” are always the weakest link — the latest of these being Divine Mercy Sunday. Whenever they seem to folks to be really strong and apt, it’s because somebody is exercised about whatever sociological or catechetical or spiritual issue called forth the designation.
The Church did without Holy Family Sunday for many centuries. Although it dates from the 17th C, it only entered the universal calendar in 1921. Fears about human families being headed for trouble led to the implementation of this feast for the worldwide church. The Holy Family was expected to offer an ideal model for family life, to shore up our families by promoting devotion to the Holy Family.
You’ll notice it didn’t help much. I suspect this is because Liturgy is poorly adapted to addressing social problems. Catechetical or quasi-therapeutic ends are not well served by adding feasts to the liturgical cycle.
Before the reform, Holy Family Sunday was celebrated in the octave of the Epiphany. (I am not sure what the readings were when it was in that spot. Did this solve Peggy’s narrative sequence concerns? Not sure.) Now it appears close to the Nativity. Holy Family Sunday seems to hold up a picture, rather like a Christmas tableau, rather than to celebrate an event as does the Nativity or the Epiphany or the Baptism of the Lord. Again, it’s just a weak set-up from the start.
The lectionary assigns narratives to what is basically an idea feast. There is nothing wrong with the narratives themselves. But I’d like to suggest that they feel awkward, because they are awkward due to the nature of the feast, which is not about any of the events described.
I agree with Anthony Ruff, the stories of the liturgical cycle don’t need to be in historical sequence. But the concern about how Holy Family Sunday fits into the Christmas season is a genuine question on other grounds, similar to how Divine Mercy really “fits” into the Second Sunday of Easter.
By the way, if it’s not too much to ask, why was the notice of the circumcision of Christ on January 1 suppressed?
This on the Bishops Conference Website from 1991:
National Conference of Catholic Bishops
United States of America
Decree of Promulgation
On December 13, 1991 the members of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States of America made the following general decree concerning holy days of obligation for Latin rite Catholics:
In addition to Sunday, the days to be observed as holy days of obligation in the Latin Rite dioceses of the United States of America, in conformity with canon 1246, are as follows:
January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God;
Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter, the solemnity of the Ascension;
August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary;
November 1, the solemnity of All Saints;
December 8, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception;
December 25, the solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Whenever January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, or August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption, or November 1, the solemnity of All Saints, falls on a Saturday or on a Monday, the precept to attend Mass is abrogated.
This decree of the Conference of Bishops was approved and confirmed by the Apostolic See by a decree of the Congregation for Bishops (Prot. N. 296/84), signed by Bernardin Cardinal Gantin, prefect of the Congregation, and dated July 4, 1992.
As President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, I hereby declare that the effective date of this decree for all the Latin rite dioceses of the United States of America will be January 1, 1993, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.
Given at the offices of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, DC, November 17, 1992.
+ Daniel E. Pilarczyk
Archbishop of Cincinnati
President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops
Robert N. Lynch
General Secretary
LB writes: “…and pray that their parishioners don’t decide to toss the new missalettes in the pews into a fire or throw them down in the pews in disgust.
The priests don’t look forward to being glued to reading from the sacramentary without being able to look at their parishioners, as they have been doing. …”
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Wow Little Bear, you are worried. I do not see the same issues that have you so gloomy. Lighten up; it is Christmastime after all.
I have looked at samples from the new missal on the USCCB web page and they will not be that difficult. Actually the changes to the phrasing of the people’s parts are relatively easy. Priests will need to work on the changes in the language they use during mass, and they are certainly up to that task.
And so rather than grousing on and getting all worked up about some inevitable changes to the missal language, why not try to have a Happy Christmas season and hope for a Happy New Year?
:-)
Just a little more on linear narrative: The ‘linear narrative’ of the Gospels themselves seem to be, at least to some extent, the authorial stringing-together of separate pericopae. Perhaps the non-linearity of the liturgical calendar highlights this.
In this vein, perhaps it’s worth recalling that worship *preceded* the coalescing of what we’ve come to know as the Bible. Christians were already gathering for the breaking of the bread, already singing psalms, hymns and inspired songs, already recounting to one another the marvelous words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth, perhaps already memorializing the lives, not only of Christ, but of Peter, James and Mary, when “Matthew”, “Luke” and “John” were polishing their collections of those episodes. Christian communal worship was constitutive of the faith that led to the creation and preservation of the books of the New Testament.
Thanks to all. Though I posted a bit tongue in cheek, I am impressed with the plethora of explanations explaining how it is the way it is. So Catholic!!
Ken, the changes to the assembly’s parts are different enough that people will stumble over the text – changes to the Gloria and Sanctus alone are enormous, and the absurd return in the ‘Dominum, non sum dignus est’ are theologically wrong in that the new (old) wording loses the clarity of the simple words “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you’.
By essentially returning to the first version of the Mass of Pope Paul VI, which was a poor attempt to render the fullness of the Latin text into coloquial English – poor enough, indeed that there were 2 revisions of it. This latest translation is not a revision, but a restoration.
While I do not expect wholesale condemnation on the part of the parishioners at my church, I can tell you that there will be some discord, lots of discussion, and then – the inevitable Roman Catholic ‘shrug’ which says it all “what can you do, Rome is crazy”.
Meanwhile, I plan to support the ‘restoration’ in the Jesuit spirit and will do my utmost to follow the decision of the USCCB with mind AND heart.
Germany dismissed the Vatical request for a rehashing of the text by telling Rome that it was not a good time to change the texts in the German church and essentially ‘ruin’ the -germanity – of the current translation. Rome acceded. Hmmm, so why didn’t the USCCB do the same thing?
Anyway, it will sure be an exciting year – with perhaps more steps taken in the Canonization of JP II.
And our church continues to bleed..