Deacon Sunday?

Reading: Acts 6:1-7

As the number of disciples continued to grow, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. So the Twelve called together the community of the disciples and said, “It is not right for us to neglect the word of God to serve at table. Brothers, select from among you seven reputable men, filled with the Spirit and wisdom, whom we shall appoint to this task, whereas we shall devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” The proposal was acceptable to the whole community, so they chose Stephen, a man filled with faith and the Holy Spirit, also Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas of Antioch, a convert to Judaism. They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid hands on them. The word of God continued to spread, and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly; even a large group of priests were becoming obedient to the faith.

Examining Acts 6:1-6 serves a dual purpose. First, it shows the difficulty in drawing straight lines from current ecclesial praxis back to the apostolic church. Secondly, it demonstrates the often ambiguous nature of the word “deacon” in all its forms as it is used by New Testament authors, showing that most frequently it refers to an activity, not to a specific office, or order of ministry, in the church. Two of the three usages of various forms of the word “deacon” in these verses of Acts indirectly refer to the seven. The first use of diakonia implies what service they are to be set apart for, namely insuring an equal distribution of food daily among the widows of the community, a community that held all things in common, thus they were set apart primarily as peace-makers and bridge-builders within the community. Closely bound up with the first appearance of diakonia is the word diakonein that the twelve use to describe the very service for which the seven are set apart by the laying on of hands. It also bears noting that despite distinguishing being in charge of the daily distribution, which apparently included something like waiting tables, from the diakonia of the word, which, along with having adequate time to pray, is why the twelve wanted to be free from those duties, especially in light of the dispute that arose, we shortly read that "Stephen, filled with grace and power" began "working great wonders and signs among the people" and launching into an extended sermon that constitutes part of the authentic Christian proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Acts 6:9). So, while this and subsequent references to the seven men, only two of whom, Stephen and Philip, we read more about in Acts, do not refer to them as deacons, it is easy to understand why they represent the biblical basis for this order of ministry.

"Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis"

The Agnus Dei from Jon Rutter's Requiem is this week's Friday traditio

Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. archangels

"'You will see greater things than this.' And he said to him, 'Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man'" (John 1:47-51).

Each year it is my joy and privilege to assist on this great feast in commissioning the choristers (two of whom are my daughters) of The Madeleine Choir School, those who sing in the Sts. Cecilia, Gregory, and Nicholas Choirs, for another year of service at The Cathedral of the Madeleine, where I am privileged to serve. It is fitting that a deacon leads them in the promises they make to serve Christ, the King, putting their muscial gifts and training at the service of worshipping Almighty God.

That's a wrap for September 2010! Friday, 1 October is the beginning of rosary month.

Christ's institution of the Eucharist

Another salient quote by His Beatitude Maximos IV from one of his interventions at the Second Vatican Council:

"Christ offered the first Eucharistic Sacrifice in a language which could be understood by all who heard him, namely, Aramaic. … Never could the idea have come to them [the Apostles] that in a Christian gathering the celebrant should read the texts of Holy Scripture, sing psalms, preach or break bread, and at the same time use a language different from that of the community gathered there … because this language [Latin] was spoken by the faithful of that time, Greek was abandoned in favor of Latin. … Why, then, should the Roman Church cease to apply the same principle today?"

Living a Christian life, a life of integrity

"While comfort and consolation are legitimate things to experience at and from liturgy there is also - and, I would argue, more compellingly - the challenge that all liturgy offers us; nothing less than communal conversion and communal self-transcendence. This means that the Eucharist challenges us to change our minds, hearts, and - yes - our ways and wills to conform to what God has already revealed and has in store for us. Liturgy is not a refuge from the world so much as it is an intense moment in time that refocuses our lives and reminds us that what we celebrate in liturgy should be borne out in the way live our lives" (Msgr. Kevin W. Irwin Models of the Eucharist pg. 92).

Asserting that what we do in liturgy should be bear fruit in our lives is a call to integrity, that is, integration. As Christians we have integrity only insofar as what we do in liturgy shapes how we live. Along these lines, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver delivered a great speech the other night at Houston Baptist University (the link takes you to His Excellency's complete speech on YouTube). In it he discussed the disastrous nature of the speech John F. Kennedy gave in Houston to a group of Protestant ministers during the 1960 presidential campaign. In his Houston speech, which Mitt Romney's College Station speech was supposed to be some kind of LDS analog, Kennedy basically said that if he were elected his Catholic faith would have no bearing whatsoever on how he governed. In essence Kennedy's message that night in Houston some fifty years ago was "I solemnly swear on a stack of Constitutions that if elected my most deeply held and cherished beliefs will have absolutely no impact on how I govern." This is not living one's faith with integrity. One could multiply examples moving forward. Probably the next most famous example would be Mario Cuomo's 1984 Notre Dame speech when he set forth his "personally opposed but I can't impose my faith on other people" defense of his stance in favor of an unlimited abortion license, as if the defense of innocent human life were a uniquely Catholic concern.

Living with integrity is difficult at times. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed a long time ago, Christian discipleship has a cost. Sometimes it costs us nothing less than it cost the Lord, as with Bonhoeffer, it may cost you your life! For most of us, the cost is not that high, it may mean accepting defeat, disappointment, rejection, being seen as being "a bit off," as the British say. Then again, Jesus asks, "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels" (Mark 8:36-38). The Greece/Goldman shenanigans offer us a concrete glimpse of what it means to lack integrity, which almost rises to the level blasphemy, given Blankfein's claim that they are doing God's work.

The Eucharist is what gives us strength "to live this way." As Archbishop Javier Martínez of Granada, Spain stated in a speech he delivered several years ago, Beyond Secular Reason, part of which I include in my blog header: "The Eucharist is the only place of resistance to the annihilation of the human subject. And the Eucharist is also the place where one can learn and experience a universality, which is not the abstract and false universality of modernity, which is not in opposition to local realization, identity and fullness."

This Lent make an effort to go to Mass more in order to let the Lord challenge you, to let Him conform your lowly body with his glorified body, so that you may live a life that accords with your destiny, the reason you exist, a life of integrity, the only path to true happiness.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Jesus Christ makes us clean and whole

During the first part of the Nativity Fast (15 November-12 December), I am trying to pray my way through St. Mark's Gospel. In my reading this morning, specifically chapter two verse seventeen, Jesus says to those scribes and Pharisees who are scandalized by him eating with tax collectors and sinners: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." In so doing he affirms the opinion of the scribes and Pharisees with regard to the tax collectors and sinners, that are sinful and need to repent, that is, they needed to reorient their lives, to change. The Lord also, with a no small amount of irony, bordering on sarcasm, includes the scribes and the Pharisees among those who need to repent. In other words, despite all their works, their strict observance of the 613 mitzvot, their lives need to be reoriented, too.

It seems to me the difference between these two groups is that the tax collectors and sinners are somewhat conscious of their sins and, hence, of their need to repent, but the scribes and Pharisees see themselves as righteous, as spiritually well, thus needing no physician to heal them. A more subtle element comes into play here, too. Christ came into the world to heal, not to judge, to call us to repentance and blaze the path of righteousness. Insofar as our good works are motivated by legalism, by a self-congratulating sense of keeping the rules, they have the effect of keeping us from God and separating us from others by causing us to think we are somehow better because we try harder. In the case of fasting and abstinence, say, we have to see what are doing as a means and not as an end in itself. The end to which such efforts are a means is holiness, Christ-like-ness.

Genuine righteousness comes through faith and is manifested by wholesome works. Like the teachers of the Law, very often we want to expel evil, to cast it out, to avert our gaze. Christ Jesus comes to transform evil, to stare it in the face, and to overcome it. When contemplating evil, I need look no further than my own heart. In the prayer at end of Lauds this morning (Tuesday, Week I of the Psalter), we pray: "The light of heaven's love has restored us to life; free us from the desires that belong to darkness."

As an observant Jew, but one who is Messiah and Lord, Jesus did not become unclean by contact with tax collectors, sinners, or even Gentiles. His touch makes the unclean clean. Can anyone imagine that the tax collectors and sinners who dined with Jesus walked away from this event unchanged? Of course, the textbook answer is "No! They would have been changed, their lives redirected!" More realistically, in our heart of hearts, which draws from our own experience, we can imagine them walking away unchanged. We can imagine this because of how often we walk away from Mass having received the Eucharist unchanged, that is, unrepentant. As we approach Advent perhaps we should give some thought to the reason for our hardness of heart. I urge you to consider this reason: maybe too often we receive communion not being properly disposed, that is, to use the old formulation, not in a state of grace, put more simply still, not having gone to confession for far too long.

If you think living the moral teachings of the church is difficult, you are correct. I would say that living this way, in the manner of disciples of Jesus, doing the right things for the right reason in the right way, is impossible on our own, even assuming that we really want to. We need the support of others who are committed to holiness, but more than that even, we need God's grace. Where and how do we receive the grace necessary to live as followers of Jesus? The answer is that we receive the grace necessary to be made whole, to be made healthy, to be made clean, through the sacraments. Post-baptismally, we receive the grace we need primarily in and through the sacraments of penance and Eucharist. To fully receive the grace the Eucharist holds for us, we must clear out all that blocks God's grace. Sin does not prevent God from communicating divine life to us, but it prevents us from receiving God's life and communicating God's love to others. So, like the scribes and Pharisees, we deny that we need a physician by not going to confession. By refusing to go to confession, we do not seek treatment for what ails us: sin. Like any untreated serious illness, sin results in death. Jesus is the healer of my soul.

"Lux aeterna luceat eis Domine"

This being November, the month during which we remember our dead, and in light of the week I have had so far, I turn to the sacred liturgy for solace because Christ does not disappoint. So, the Lux Aeterna from Mozart's Requiem Mass, performed by the Krakow Philharmonic for the Sacrem Profanum Fesitval in 2004, with a video by Maciej Sobociński and Paweł Augustynek-Halny. Oddly, I could not find out anything about the soloist or the choir. The projection is worthy of this sacred music. I cannot begin to describe how deeply this moves me this morning. Deo gratias!

Mozart's Lux Aeterna from his Requiem Mass is our Friday traditio.

"Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es"

Ecclesiae Unitatem

Following the public release yesterday of Caritatis in Veritate, today Pope Benedict XVI issued an Apostolic Letter, dated 2 July, motu proprio, entitled Ecclesiae Unitatem.

This letter concerns the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. This commission was established in the motu proprio promulgated by Pope John Paul II after the late "Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre illicitly conferred episcopal ordination upon four priests." The valid but illicit episcopal ordination took place on 30 June 1988. Established on 2 July 1988, the commission was to look into once again allowing the use of the 1962 Missale Romanum, which was suppressed by Pope Paul VI once the missal was promulgated after the Second Vatican Council. Eventually, Pope John Paul II allowed the celebration of the 1962 Missale Romanum, but only with the approval of the local bishop. Two years ago, on 7 July 2007, Pope Benedict XVI promulgated motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, allowing for the celebration of Mass according to the 1962 missal as an extraordinary form at the discretion of priests, who no longer require the permission of their bishops.

In time, after the formal excommunications of those four and Lefebvre, this independent commission oversaw all formal contact between the church and the Society of St. Pius X. Because with the promulgation of Summorum, the liturgical issues are no longer a barrier to reunion, the issues are now doctrinal. So, Ecclesiae Unitatem places Ecclesia Dei under the Congregration for the Doctrine of the Faith. In number 6 of today's letter, the Holy Father stipulates that:

"The Pontifical Commission 'Ecclesia Dei' will, then, have the following configuration:

(a) The president of the Commission is the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

(b) The Commission has its own staff, composed of the secretary and officials.

(c) It will be the task of the president, with the assistance of the secretary, to submit the principal cases and questions of a doctrinal nature for study and discernment according to the ordinary requirements of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and to submit the results thereof to the superior dispositions of the Supreme Pontiff."

So, William Cardinal Levada, who will be in Salt Lake City next month for the celebration of the centennial of The Cathedral of the Madeleine, becomes the president of Ecclesia Dei, with Msgr. Guido Pozzo, who currently serves as adjunct secretary of the International Theological Commission, another commission under the auspices of CDF, as secretary of the commission.

Jesus and Rutherford B. Hayes

I am doing some reading on the sacrament of confirmation, while reading today I came across something by the late Fr. Aidan Kavanaugh, OSB, who, when discussing the problems that negatively affect our understanding, liturgical praxis, and living out the sacrament of confirmation, states that we misunderstand "the connection between memorial (anamnesis) and invocation (epiclesis) in worship." He insists that "memorial and invocation, anamnesis and epiclesis are in reality one, since the deepest memory of God is made possible only when the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus to be the Christ of God." Here is the punchline: "To remember Jesus in any other way is not essentially different from remembering Rutherford B. Hayes."

I love Fr. Kavanaugh's writings on the sacraments and this made me smile today and to remember him. He passed over in 2006.

The day nears...and is here

"Sound the trumpet in Zion; the day of the Lord is near; he comes to save us, alleluia" (Advent Antiphon 1, Week IV of the Psalter). Sine dominico non possumus= We cannot live without Sunday because Jesus comes to us each Sunday, in our gathering, in the reading and hearing of God's word, and in the bread and wine. Only he can and will right every wrong for he is "Strong God" and "Ruler of all" (Advent Antiphon 2, Week IV of the Psalter). So, joy, light, and peace to all on this, the final Sunday of this Advent, as we continue our waiting in joyful hope, together.

Prepare our hearts

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ever faithful in your promises
and ever close to your Church: the earth rejoices in hope of the Savior's coming
and looks forward with longing to his return at the end of time.
Prepare our hearts and remove the sadness that hinders us from feeling the joy
which his presence will bestow, or he is Lord for ever and ever
(Alternative prayer for 3rd Sunday of Advent).

Grant us the vision of wisdom

Father in heaven, the day draws near when the glory of your Son
will make radiant the night of the waiting world.
May the lure of greed not impede us from the joy
which moves the hearts of those who seek him.
May the darkness not blind us
to the vision of wisdom
which fills the minds of those who find him.
We ask this through Christ our Lord (Alternative Prayer for the 2nd Sunday of Advent).

Dismissals

With a diaconal bow to Rocco, over at Whispers, here are the three new dismissals that will appear in the revised Missal:

-- "Ite ad Evangelium Domini annuntiandum" (Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord).

-- "Ite in pace, glorificando vita vestra Dominum" (Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life).

-- "Ite in pace" (Go in peace).

As some may know, the very word Mass comes from the Latin for dismissal. The Mass does indeed end and we are sent forth. to live and to announce the good news we have received. Of course, we return again for nourishment, for strength, for food for the journey. I like them. I think it satisfies the desire expressed by quite a few bishops, to quote Rocco, that "the final words to reflect a more explicit connection between Mass and the church's mission of evangelization in the world". As one who has the privilege of singing the dismissal, this has been in my head all morning. What a pleasant mental state!

Michael Card and Phil Keaggy are our traditio. I am thankful for their witness to the One who is the author of our life, which we return to Him out of gratitude, out of which we craft, in the words of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, "something beautiful for God".