CALL TO HOLINESS-2

The Liturgy: The Source and Summit of our Faith

The incorporation of the teachings of Vatican II into the Catholic life has been very uneven. The common experience of the Liturgy has been the biggest area of change and the most accepted by the faithful.

I would like to share a personal story leading into some reflections on liturgical reform and the call to universal holiness.

It was about twenty years before the beginning of Vatican II. I was at the Sunday school mass with my fourth grade class. The nuns kept a great discipline and order among the eight hundred students.

My crisis began when the priest placed two hosts on my tongue at Communion time. I became terrified and lost any common sense perspective. I tried to stay in line on the way back to my seat. I placed the extra host on the side of my mouth with the hope of bringing it back to the Monsignor right after the mass.

I was becoming consumed in a sense of horror as the host was rapidly melting in my mouth. My dilemma was that I could never touch the host nor receive two hosts. Likewise, I had to stay in place and keep quiet. Today we would call it the perfect storm of horror. As the host melted in my mouth, I was expecting the floor to open up and I would plunge straight down to the consuming fires of hell. To my utter amazement, I was somehow spared my eternal punishment at that moment. The floor at my feet held steady.

As soon as I got outside, I ran to the sacristy and told the Monsignor about my two host horror story. He said simply, “That’s all right boy. “Don’t worry about it.” While I was relieved, I also was terribly confused. I said to myself, “What the hell is this about?” Somehow I just avoided the eternal fires of hell and he says, “Don’t worry about it!”

This was the beginning of Vatican II for me. It was the first unraveling of the “Catholic world” that was my inflexible and non-negotiable heritage. This was the culture that had evolved from the defensive stance against the Protestants over the previous four centuries since the Council of Trent.

Vatican II became a process of stripping off the rigid strait-jacket that maintained the Catholic discipline centered around the sixth commandment, Mass on Sunday and fish on Friday. Walking with Jesus had become hidden somewhere along the way.

The Dominance of the Priestly Role

In the pre-Vatican II world, liturgy centered around the priest. Only the priest touching the host was one among many common practices that were established in response to the Protestant reformation.

The priest was seen as the mediator between the people and God. The priest was viewed as special, holy and outside the ordinary lives of the people. An entire culture of exclusiveness developed to support this view and help create a warped clericalism.

In the liturgy, the mass centered on the exclusive role of the priest. He prayed quietly in Latin with his back to the people and separated by the communion rail. The main part of the Mass became the special words of the priest changing the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. This was identified by the ringing of the bell at the elevation of the host and chalice.

This emphasis on the importance of the priest led to the greatly diminished role of the laity. My crisis of not touching the sacred host was crossing the sacred division between the exalted role of the priest and the inconsequential role of the laity. The reality was clear. The priest was the holy one. The laity were along for the ride. They just needed to follow the rules and all would be well because the priest was bringing God to them.

The Church as the People of God

The changes in the liturgy mandated by Vatican II were a radical transformation from the priest-dominated reality in the centuries following the Council of Trent. The basic change was the Church was now seen as the People of God. Priests were part of the common people of faith. They are distinguished by a role as is the laity. The main difference at the Eucharist is not the change of the bread and wine but the transformation of the entire community into the Body of Christ.

This relates strongly to the call for universal holiness. This is why we call the liturgy the source and summit of our faith. Many other changes flow from these basic insights of the new emphasis on the People of God celebrating the Eucharist. The priest no longer is the celebrant. The entire community celebrates in unity. The priest presides over the communal celebration.

The laity have increased roles as lectors, Eucharistic ministers and ministers of hospitality. Likewise, the role of the musician and choirs have grown in importance. The Eucharist is placed on the hand without the separation of the communion rail or the posture of kneeling.

Most importantly, the message of the celebration and the liturgical seasons and scripture readings are all leading into a central and governing emphasis on the Pascal Mystery of Christ. All are defined most accurately not as priest or laity. All are Disciples of Christ, gathered to journey through life in the footsteps of Jesus. That is why we call the liturgy the source and summit of our faith. We are all, first and foremost, Disciples of Christ.

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CALL TO HOLINESS-1

Baptism’s Call to Holiness

This blog, Praying Alone Together, has a clear goal. It hopes to teach people to pray with a depth that will produce the significant personal changes. It aims to achieve personal purification to move away from hidden selfishness and sinfulness. It hopes to enlighten one to gospel values. Finally, it seeks a personal transformation to prepare one for a deeper and purer experience of God.

It is problematic to lay out such a clear goal for most Catholics. They are participants in a Catholic culture that is much less demanding. For most Catholics, the issue is to go to church regularly, say their prayers, and make sure all the family has a clear understanding of the faith and to live a good life. Basically, it is an effort to cover one’s bets by the religious rituals and practices and then live your life until the next crisis.

Vatican II has two basic teachings about spirituality that challenge that religious practice that is less demanding. The first is this. There is a universal call to holiness. The second is that this holiness comes through a spirituality that participates and engages with the world. The will of God for every human being is their personal sanctification. The average Catholic has no interest in being a saint. Most just want to be a good Catholic.

Herein we come face to face with the problem. There are at least three factors in general Catholic culture that secretly rejects this Vatican II call to holiness which is foundational to this blog, Praying Alone Together.

The first difficulty is how we look at saints. The second is our perspective on those who have left the world for religious life to more authentically follow the gospel. The third is how we view priests as mediators between God and the lay people.

Catholic culture views the saints as spectacularly holy. They are in a totally different level than the ordinary folks. This leads most people to feel they are not called to be holy. Yet, all are called in an ordinary and simple manner to be holy by living an authentic and loving way. We need to move beyond the obstacle of the wildly heroic saints. We need to realize that we have the opportunity of being holy in the flow of the commonplace events of our life.

The second obstacle to lay holiness inherent to Catholic culture is the idea that holiness is for those who withdraw from the world and have entered religious life. They left all to help their pursuit of holiness. The rest are seen as second class citizens and are held excused in the holiness game.

The third deterrent is the perceived role of the priest. The priest is seen as on a pedestal and called to a much greater degree of holiness. He is another Christ. He is identified as a mediator with God.

Role of Baptism

Vatican II’s call to universal holiness is rooted in the proper understanding of baptism. All baptized are members of the community of faith, the body of Christ. All baptized are called to live the fullness of the gospel call. The vows of religious are simply a different means to achieve this common goal. The priest is not separate from the community but has a particular role in the people of God. Baptism is the great sacrament of equality and entrance into this holy community.

In the early Church, all the members were called saints. St. Thomas Aquinas saw the Christian vocation as charity, loving God and loving neighbor. The vows of religious are simply a different means to that common goal shared by all. Like so many other things related with religion, this basic truth of the universal call to holiness was distorted over the centuries. It put vowed religious in an unrealistic and distorted role in the faith community.

A good example of this was the shock when many nuns chose not to wear the religious habit. This had nothing to do with their pursuit of the gospel. Most of the nuns saw it as a step toward freedom in seeking God.

The basic and truly overwhelming truth is this. Baptism, which unites us all with Christ, makes us members of the People of God. It is as members of the People of God that we share the call to holiness. This universal call needs to be the guiding force in the life of all, no matter what role they may have in the community. The roots of this baptismal call to sanctity do not allow for separation, elevation or hierarchy among the members of the faith community. The basic norm is equality.

All are brothers and sisters. Some have roles of service in the common quest to be one with God in love.

Catholic Culture

It is impossible to practice our religion without a culture. However, all cultures share in the human condition of sin and grace. Every religious culture must be evaluated by the standards of the gospel. This is what Vatican II did in relationship to spirituality and the call to holiness.

The point of interest here is that inherent in Catholic culture there are at least three hindrances to the common acceptance of the baptismal call to holiness.

In the following few blogs in this series I will attempt to further develop these points of interest about the universal call to holiness along with the need to live it out in the midst of our daily lives in this world.

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