Ubi Petrus

(For those of you, who had the instant reaction of “Yes we can!” no, this isn’t a Bob the Builder post. Gotcha.) Michael at NLM makes a very striking and yet simple statement:

This brings to mind an immense challenge as we try to reform the sacred music of the Church. What do we do to restore the treasury of music to a pride of place not only within the four walls of a church building, but also within the souls of the faithful? It seems to me that there is no easy answer for this and that the solutions that seem likely to work are apt to meet with heavy resistance and require a lot of patience, such as teaching children from very young ages so that they associate chant with church, and sticking with the repertoire even if it doesn’t “take” in the first year, fifth year, or even tenth year. We also need to be writing new music that is clearly indebted to the traditional music of the past. Nevertheless, this is a problem from which we must not shrink, for if someday every Mass is sung with Gregorian chant and yet the people are not edified by it, then ultimately we have lost.

I’ve often thought of suggesting to either our pastor or the choral director that there are many in our parish who would be most inspired and grateful should we hear occasional pieces of truly Catholic music at Mass. The only thing that holds me back is that I’m pretty sure the director has little-to-no interest in Gregorian chant and probably little in Palestrina. But Michael’s point is even more incisive – even if I were to make this request and they were willing to do so but no one was edified I would have done nothing. The re-introduction of proper music must be done properly, gradually, without the shock of the guitar-and-tambourine folk music that seemed to have sprinted onto the stage not so long ago. My gut tells me if it’s introduced slowly and equally importantly performed well then people will suddenly find they feel “home” and maybe even those who think they come to church to be entertained will find deeper meaning than the surface enjoyment they’ve come to associate with Mass. Then again, I’m a closet optimist, so who knows.

So my question remains. How do you help to ensure your kids are learning to appreciate chant? I’m talking methods and hard, cold strategies here. Just telling them to like it and forcing it on them isn’t going to work. And let us not forget, I have utterly no skill when it comes to singing (I played trumpet through the fifth or sixth grade, but that’s about it) so coming at it from a technical perspective is nigh impossible. If you suggest talking to the children’s choir director that’s fine as well (when my kids are old enough for that) but experience in dealing with, and convincing, initially intransigent directors would be more helpful. I’m at the level of most of us out here – I know good music “when I hear it” but I couldn’t argue with someone at a technical level. So…help me out, and maybe others too.

It’s simply not possible. It’s simply not, I tell you. But yet, there it is. And no, I didn’t cheat and re-take the test or anything like that. It’s actually a humbling experience to get a good score on even something as simple as this when it only reinforces how much you don’t know. Go ahead and take it, it’s fun! H/T to Curt Jester.

Chris Blosser has posted a helpful handful of links on Saint Thomas Aquinas. While his impact on the Church and on theology in general cannot be overstated many find him, to be generous, tough sledding. But since one of the greatest gifts we have is our ability to learn, the resources page Chris offers here is invaluable. I confess to having failed to work my way through the Summa and have thus far put off continuing to try due to an ever-increasing “to-be-read” pile on my desk. Maybe these links will provide the spurt of energy to get me going. If you have any other great resources, do let me know. One can never have too much help when reading the masters.

From the reading of Morning Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours:

I have appeared to you to designate you as my servant and as a witness to what you have seen of me and what you will see of me. I have delivered you from this people and from the nations, to open the eyes of those to whom I am sending you, to turn them from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God; that through their faith in me they may obtain the forgiveness of their sins and a portion among God’s people. (Acts 26:16b-18)

What a call! What a weight! And yet, St. Paul turns on his spiritual heel and begins to follow this commission that has since probably seen no equal. This, to me, approaches equivalent weight to “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” It’s also a microcosm of conversion in any case – first you are informed, then you are converted. Sometimes it’s instantaneous, sometimes the lag between step 1 and step 2 is well nigh to forever. St. Paul, pray for us!
(Image from catholicculture.org.)

Fr. Z outdoes me by a long shot with his patristiblogging of Paul’s conversion.

I just noticed that Haloscan comments and trackbacks weren’t displaying on individual post pages. That’s what happens when I don’t look at my own posts post-by-post. Mea culpa. Everything should be working now, although I still have to delete some extraneous remnants of Blogger comments since I haven’t used that for a while now. I fully expect an overwhelming torrent of comments now that I’ve fixed this. Or something.

No, sadly I wasn’t able to go. But after reading Fr. Martin Fox’s reports here, here and here, a heretofore unfound determination welled up inside me. Every once in a while someone tells a story and you feel like you’re right there watching it happen – for whatever reason, that was my reaction to these posts. I missed it this year, by the grace of God I won’t miss it next year. Will you?

I was debating whether to write anything today, given that I’m far from the most authoritative source on the subject, but after reading Father Larry’s post at Eyes of Faith I’ll let him do the talking. My question to you, good friend, is this: have you done your part today to work for an end to abortion and the culture of death which holds our world so seemingly firmly in its grip? I’m not usually one to push this issue since I have historically found an excuse to keep me from performing some sort of act, either of penance or extra prayers or what have you.

Through some miracle I noticed that the church right near my house had its lights on each morning when I came home from dropping the kids off (the advantages of working from home periodically) and lo and behold, they now have daily Mass at 8:00. I walked in just as they were finishing the Rosary – there were probably around 20 people or so, not bad at all.

So starting the day with Mass is good enough usually. Then I suggested to my son that instead of taking a nap he could pray the Rosary with me. Much to my surprise he gleefully jumped at the chance, asking only which Rosary he could use. There is something uniquely edifying about praying with your own child. And to top it off, he suggested of his own volition that we should do this every Monday, Wednesday and Friday when I’m home in time. It is a great stand of theology that God gives that we may give back, and that in giving back we receive even more greatly. My son just may make me holier than I would have made myself… Deo gratias! So…if you haven’t done anything “special” today, maybe right now is a good time to find something, even if it is a small thing.

From then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s God is Near Us, a homily on Acts 2:42:

And so I beg you, do not allow this breath of prayer, however pressed you may be, to cease in your everyday priestly life. We need the breath of prayer. You will see how it bears fruit. Let prayer spread its influence in the congregations. In order that the Eucharist may live, they need this space of prayer, which is open to us through the praise of God, rendered possible by praying vespers together. Praying the rosary and the stations of the Cross, everything by way of prayer that has developed in the fullness of the Christian faith – we need it again today. We need it especially in a world that is bored amid the perfection of its occupations, that is not just preoccupied with itself but wishes to be touched by him who alone can give our lives meaning.

Personal pious devotions have long been one of the vertebrae of the Catholic faith, and their setting aside in recent decades as antiquated and outmoded has proven to be a painful reminder of how much we don’t understand ourselves. These devotions, these models of prayer, some have considered ‘accretions’ but I suggest that they when properly formed and properly utilized were natural and organic formations of the Spirit working in the Church to reach to more and more of those who strain toward the God they can never fully know in this life. As the Pope says elsewhere, our Churches must once again become fully alive, places where Jesus is rarely left alone, that the life given by the Life may flow out from the doors of our churches at the sounding of “Ite, missa est!” God has given us a history that we might remember it as our paternity, not that we might dismiss it as arcane.

Do you wish your son to be obedient? From the first, “but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4). Never deem it unnecessary that he should listen diligently to the divine Scriptures. For there the first thing he hears will be this: “Honor your father and your mother” (Ex 20:12), so you will win your reward

Never say that the reading of Scripture is the business of monks. Am I making a monk of him? No. There is no need for him to become a monk. Why be so afraid of a thing so replete with so much advantage? Make him a Christian. For it is altogether necessary for laymen to be acquainted with the lessons derived from this source – but especially for children. For theirs is an age full of folly; and to this folly are added the bad examples derived from the pagan myths, where they are made acquainted with heroes so admired, who are slaves of their passions, and cowards with regard to death…

…I do not say this to prevent you teaching him these things [politics and worldly knowledge], but to prevent your attending to them exclusively. Do not imagine that the monk alone stands in need of these lessons from Scripture. Of all others, the children just about to enter the world specially need them. — St. John Chrysostom, homily to the Ephesians

As if doing this properly was not already enough of a concern for me, this is like being hit over the head about it. There’s nothing like a Father of the Church leering at you and thundering, “attend to your duties!” to get your attention. I only wish there were more books out there like Mike Aquilina’s The Fathers of the Church to continue to push forward, to keep me from settling in to the comfortable. Okay, so there are many out there which I simply need to find, but this one is a masterful work. I’m probably not done referencing this book, nor will I be likely to any time soon.

The most basic Christian gesture in prayer is and always will be the sign of the Cross. It is a way of confessing Christ crucified with one’s very body, in accordance with the programmatic words of St. Paul: “[W]e preach Christ Crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Hews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:23f). Again he says: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (2:2). To seal oneself with the sign of the Cross is a visible and public Yes to him who suffered for us; to him who in the body has made God’s love visible, even to the utmost; to the God who reigns not by destruction but by the humility of suffering and love, which is stronger than all the power of the world and wiser than all the calculating intelligence of men. The sign of the Cross is a confession of faith: I believe in him who suffered for me and rose again; in him who has transformed the sign of shame into a sign of hope and of the love of God that is present with us. The confession of faith is a confession of hope: I believe in him who in his weakness is the Almighty; in him who can and will save me even in apparent absence and impotence. By signing ourselves with the Cross, we place ourselves under the protection of the Cross, hold it in front of us like a shield that will guard us in all the distress of daily life and give us the courage to go on. We accept it as a signpost that we follow: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mk 8:34). The Cross shows us the road of life – the imitation of Christ.

One does wonder if the depth of the symbolism of such a formerly frequent act has not been lost on this generation. Cardinal Ratzinger brought out this wonderful depth in his The Spirit of the Liturgy in the above quote. It seems so many find it another aspect of Catholicism that was to be shunned along with pious devotions, something that was quaint and antiquated, something that kept us from “relating” to others in this world. I say it is an act we need to recover, something whose depth we need to rediscover, since while we are in this world, we are not of this world. It is in doing the small things that great things are accomplished, and it is God who makes this happen. So…have you made the sign of the cross today?