Ashes among the Protestants
The complaint is sometimes heard that Vatican II and its reforms “Protestantized” the Catholic Church, the liturgy, etc. Not much notice is taken of the degree to which since Vatican II, many Protestant Churches have been “Catholicized.” I was reminded of this this evening when the local TV news showed ashes being distributed today, and the service was being held, not in a Catholic church, but in a ME Zion black church here in DC. If I’m not mistaken, when I was a child, practices like Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday were lumped by many Protestants among those superstitions with which Catholicism practiced “works-righteousness”; both days now have much greater prominence among Protestants, it seems. I have even heard of non-Catholics using the Stations of the Cross.
More significant examples are the keeping of the Sacred Triduum of Holy Week and, above all others, the increased frequency of celebrations of the Lord’s Supper, which in many Protestant churches once were quite rare, even as rare as only four times a year.
Other examples?
Such an important point to show how V2 brought a real coming together. Especially heartening as Joe points out is the more frequent practice of the Lords Supper.
Tremendous advances have been made and this is really something to rejoice about. The whole Christian family is a lot closer today.
This is something that I’ve very much observed over the years. In fact, the one congregation my wife, who tends to find herself neither fish nor fowl among denominations, has ever been very committed to was one I nicknamed not unfairly “Pius X Baptist Church.” I remember the first time they did an Ash Wednesday service, to which not even the more conservatively Protestant members seemed to object, they had it all down except how to make usable ashes, and ended up with powdered burnt paper flying everywhere — but they figured it out.
I think there are several reasons for this (from a Protestant point of view). First, there’s just a reaction against previous excess — when my wife was a teenager she made a little extra money as a vocal soloist with a small Christian Science (I think) Church in Redlands. One Sunday the organist gave her a piece called The Holy City because she thought it would be a good fit for her voice, and several members of the congregation walked out “because that’s a Catholic hymn.” No Catholic I know has ever heard of the piece, but that kind of overreaction is usually going to make people more rather than less tolerant.
Second, there’s so much blending in families that most Protestants have some experience of Catholic services, weren’t bit, and have taken back some of what they’ve seen.
In addition, I have observed a fair amount of cross-over from Catholicism to mainline protestant churches especially of Catholic women (the line I’ve heard several times is I can’t stay with the Catholic church after what they did to my mother) who take with them their liturgical knowledge and enthusiasms and produce a sort of amalgam as they move into volunteer musical and liturgical positions in their new churches.
On more uncertain ground, I think there is an old Protestant tradition of service music that has become largely dormant and has tended to be replaced by “classical” religious music, which tends to be from Catholic traditions and carries some of the ritual along with it.
And I think the popularity of the seder in both Catholic and Protestant churches (by the ways, the Jews still do it best) has tended to break down barriers and by going back to the sources encourage novelty and experiment.
And remember that the liturgical movement is not a creation of Vatican II but a pre-existing and very ecumenical movement. I’m not always sure what I think of ressourcement (sorry about the spelling, my French is terrible), but it has tended to outflank some Catholic/Protestant differences.
I notice that Fr. Komonchak references Palm Sunday and the Easter Triduum as things that were once written off as Catholic superstition — I have to say that in our years of conscientiously attending services of two, and sometimes three, religious traditions every weekend it never occurred to me that those weren’t traditional Baptist observances.
One unfortunate result of these changes in my experience has been that while most of the rest of the service always seemed quite comfortable to me (and the sermons were regularly above Catholic grade) the Baptist communion rite (monthly in this church as I recall) stood out all the more as not quite right. Guess I’m just a real presence kind of guy.
Another factor I didn’t mention is the prominence in recent years of Catholic writers among those selected for Protestant discussion groups (which in my experience are more central than in Catholic practice, althought that seems to be changing). I’ve seen lots of Henri Nouewen, Raymond Brown, John Paul II, Thomas Merton, etc. as the book of the week.
Thanks, Fr. Komonchak, for an inspiring post. In my view, this de-tribalization of U.S. religion has been one of the most important developments of the past 50 years. Protestants are no longer crippled by fear of Catholicizing tendencies, nor are Catholics afraid of Protestantizing ones .
As an adult convert from Catholicism to Protestantism, I can report another welcome example of “Catholicization” among Protestants: a greater openness to devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Last year’s fine book “Mary for Evangelicals,” by Tim Perry, is part of this trend.
At my own (Presbyterian) church, we celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday. I hear “Amazing Grace” at Catholic churches, and Palestrina at Protestant ones. All this amounts to a glimmer of recognition that the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is indeed one, just as the Creed says it is; and all men and women who affirm Christ are members of it. We all have much to learn from one another about our common faith.
Gene O’Grady’s comment is instructive, although I’m at least as skeptical as he is about his theory of a dormant Protestant liturgical music tradition.
I think the other significant factor here is Anglicanism. Mainline ecumenical efforts have led to much cross-pollinating within Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist circles. And the various strains of evangelical Anglicanism have not only picked off conservative Episcopalians but also made converts of many evangelicals attracted to deeply rooted tradition, ritual, and mysticism. All this has gone on while the Anglo-Catholic strain of Anglican practice has remained strong.