This month begins the implementation of several liturgical changes at two of our churches in our parish family – Queen of Angels (Port Angeles) and Saint Joseph (Sequim). This was preceded by an extensive series of meetings, emails, and generally a lot of discernment & discussion – a pattern that will continue as we both refine current practices and consider new ones. Similarly, there will be explanations at Masses, in the bulletins, and here on my blog.
But before we turn our focus to the particulars of changes current and upcoming, I’d like to take some time to talk about liturgy and law more generally. You may recall that I offered a heirarchy of values in my August post about liturgical celebrations in our parish family. The short version is that there is an order of values moving from highest to lowest: principles, policies, practicalities, and preferences. For the moment, I’d like to focus on the first two: principles and policies. In particular, I’d like to focus on how we engage them personally and communally.
If you were present to witness my Profession of Faith and Oath of Fidelity at our pastor installation Mass earlier this month, you heard some pretty powerful language. In the Profession of Faith, there were words like “I firmly accept” and “I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect” to the Church’s teachings and the teaching offices of the Pope and the College of Bishops. Similarly, I promised in the Oath of Fidelity not only to carry out my duties as pastor but, among other things, to “hold fast to the depost of faith in its entirety” and “maintain the observance of all ecclesiastical laws, especially those contained in the Code of Canon Law”. As you might imagine after reading me here and in our bulletin, these are things I do not just out of obligation but with enthusiasm!
However, just as these promises are made publicly (reassuring you of your pastor’s commitment and fidelity to his role) so they also have public effects as I carry them out in our communities. And this is where the rubber hits the road: because the average Catholic may reasonably ask ‘why do *I* have to be part of this – it wasn’t ME who took these promises!?!’
And here we begin our dive into an oft-overlooked truth: as Catholics, all of us are bound to obedience! In the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) number 25 we are reminded of the universal obligation to religious assent:
In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will.
The 1983 Code of Canon Law (CIC 750) has some bracing teaching to offer as well:
§1. A person must believe with divine and Catholic faith all those things contained in the word of God, written or handed on, that is, in the one deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, and at the same time proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn magisterium of the Church or by its ordinary and universal magisterium which is manifested by the common adherence of the Christian faithful under the leadership of the sacred magisterium; therefore all are bound to avoid any doctrines whatsoever contrary to them.
§2. Each and every thing which is proposed definitively by the magisterium of the Church concerning the doctrine of faith and morals, that is, each and every thing which is required to safeguard reverently and to expound faithfully the same deposit of faith, is also to be firmly embraced and retained; therefore, one who rejects those propositions which are to be held definitively is opposed to the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
Readers of our archbishop’s own blog (Archbishop Etienne has a blog! It’s worth visiting regularly) may recall that in 2020 he wrote a Pastoral Letter titled The Work of Redemption: Eucharistic Belief and Practice in the Archdiocese of Seattle. Among the many reflections & exhortations he offered (along with new policy in the archdiocese), he reminded us of a key passage from the Vatican II document Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy):
1. Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See and, as laws may determine, on the bishop.
2. In virtue of power conceded by the law, the regulation of the liturgy within certain defined limits belongs also to various kinds of competent territorial bodies of bishops legitimately established.
3. Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority. [emphasis added]
In 2022, Pope Francis himself offered a beautiful letter to us all, Desiderio Desideravi (On the Liturgical Formation of the People of God). Reading it through, it seems clear that he was trying to strike strike a careful balance between lawfulness and legalism. In one paragraph he reminds us that “The continual rediscovery of the beauty of the Liturgy is not the search for a ritual aesthetic which is content by only a careful exterior observance of a rite or is satisfied by a scrupulous observance of the rubrics.” (#22) while following up with the admonition that “every aspect of the celebration must be carefully tended to (space, time, gestures, words, objects, vestments, song, music…) and every rubric must be observed.” (#23) But it is his final paragraph that I found most moving:
Let us abandon our polemics to listen together to what the Spirit is saying to the Church. Let us safeguard our communion. Let us continue to be astonished at the beauty of the Liturgy. The Paschal Mystery has been given to us. Let us allow ourselves to be embraced by the desire that the Lord continues to have to eat His Passover with us. All this under the gaze of Mary, Mother of the Church.
Putting it all together, we see that all Catholics are to faithfully and obediently follow the teaching of Christ and His Church, from pope to bishops conference, to our local bishop. And the teaching given to us by the universal Church, our pope, and our bishop have much to say about our liturgies! However, it is worth remembering that the Church’s law and teaching are not just a collection of requirements or restrictions (though those are definitely present!), but instead serve to point to an easily forgotten reality of the Mass: it’s not about us, it’s about Jesus, Who chose the Eucharist sacrifice as the ordinary means by which we regularly meet and receive Him.
In short, liturgical celebrations are our encounter with Jesus. And who wouldn’t be a little nervous about coming into His (Eucharistic) presence, especially amid liturgical changes and refinement, wondering what might happen next?! But to this, I offer one last quote that I’ve found reassuring and edifying – this one from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as the main characters hear about the storie’s Christ figure, Aslan:
“Who is Aslan?” asked Susan.
“Aslan?” said Mr. Beaver, “Why don’t you know? He’s the King. . . . It is he, not you, that will save Mr. Tumnus. . . .”
“Is—is he a man?” asked Lucy.
“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
“I’m longing to see him,” said Peter, “even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point.”
We who journey together as the Barque of Saint Peter (the real Peter, not our friend above from the fictional Narnia ;-)) also hold fast to the knowledge that even though He is different, Jesus is good! Just as He challenged His disciples in His teaching and ministry, so we will be challenged in our encounter with Him in our liturgical celebrations. But like them, we follow Him not simply out of obedience but trust – because at the end of all of things, He comes not to call us servants but friends. As we draw near to Him in prayer and worship, may we allow Christ and His Church – rather than our own preconceptions or desires – to guide us in the ‘how’ of our liturgical celebrations so that we might more fully & deeply meet the ‘Who’ at their center!
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