The New Irish Lectionary

I was disappointed by this statement from the Irish Episcopal Conference this morning. The bishops seem to be moving towards the decision to adopt the Revised New Jerusalem Bible (RNJB) for the production of a new lectionary for the Irish Church. Now, I'm not a biblical scholar, and I'm not really qualified to have an expert opinion on whether one translation is better than another. However, I am a priest with over a decade's experience in parish ministry, in addition to some time doing postgraduate studies in theology, and on this question of a new lectionary, I'm primarily drawing on my experience of the pastoral and adminstrative work of an ordinary priest in a parish. 

The key issue here is not the abstract question of what translation of the scriptures is the best, but rather the practical question of how the Irish hierarchy can best use their resources to deliver a suitable and usable lectionary that will meet the needs of parishes and parish clergy. With that in mind, it makes very little sense to go down the road of soliciting other English-speaking episcopal conferences who might want to join forces with the Irish in producing a lectionary based on the RNJB when our nearest neighbours (Scotland and England & Wales) are already well-advanced on producing their own lectionary based upon the English Standard Version: Catholic Edition (ESVCE). They're doing this piggybacking on the work of the Indian Episcopal Conference which has already received Vatican approval for their ESVCE. Why aren't we collaborating with our nearest neighbours in their lectionary project? Surely it would make sense to invest our financial and human resources into the development of a common lectionary with them rather than re-inventing the wheel with a speculative lectionary project using a translation of the bible that has no guarantee of receiving Vatican approval?

From my own pastoral experience, it is of great benefit to me that the Irish Church uses the same liturgical translation as the English, Welsh and Scots. It means that resources produced for parish use in Britain can also be used in Ireland, and vice-versa. In my own work with, for example, bereaved families in planning funeral Masses, I have found some of the most useful resources have been produced in England, but can be easily adapted for Irish use precisely because the lectionary we use for funeral Masses in both countries is identitical. This doesn't simply make life easier for me, it has implications for Irish publishers who produce common materials for use in this country and in Great Britain, and for those religious congregations who administer their work in Ireland and Britain as a single unit. 

I made a submission making this point as part of the consultation process, and I think that my main point is worth expressing in very simple terms - we need to have a good lectionary in Ireland, and unless the ESVCE is genuinely unsuitable, there seems to be no good reason to waste the limited monetary and human resources availible to the Irish Church at a time when she is facing huge challenges on a speculative lectionary project, when every practical reason points to collaboration with our neighbours as the obvious way forward.        

And with your spirit!

It's a shame that those who are less than enthusiastic about the new translation of the Roman Missal are making all the noise... This homily by Bishop Conley (Auxiliary in Denver) certainly explains why we should be enthusiastic about the new translation.

When we celebrate the Eucharist, the pope says, we are “entering into the liturgy of the heavens that has always been taking place. Earthly liturgy is liturgy because and only because it joins what is already in process, the greater reality”.13

To drive this point home, our new Mass translation replaces the mundane affirmation – “Happy are those who are called to His supper” – with a confession of faith worthy of the cosmic character of our celebration.

We are not “happy”. We are blessed. We have not been called to any ordinary meal. No, we have been invited to the great banquet of our heavenly King, the wedding feast of His Son, our Redeemer.

Accordingly, we will now pray: “Blessed are those called to the Supper of the Lamb”. Again, the prayer has been there all along in the Latin. The language is an almost literal quotation from the revelation of the heavenly liturgy given to Saint John in the Book of Revelation.14

In the holy Mass heaven reaches down to earth and earth reaches up to heaven. We are worshipping not only in our local church, but in the precincts of Mount Zion, “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and [with] innumerable angels in festal gathering, and [with] the Church of first-born who are enrolled in heaven.”15

That is how the early Christians understood their worship. And it’s time for us to reclaim that same consciousness. We need to come to our worship filled with this same awe for the mystery of God’s love and His covenant plan.

Amen!

Something more upbeat...

A friend has taken to describing the Association of Catholic Priests as the Association of Grumpy Priests, so it behoves me to post something uplifting and positive.

Firstly, Don Marco reminds us that we have some wonderful saints to celebrate this week:

I have always experienced the last days of September and the first week of October (September 29 -- October 7) as a moment of spiritual enchantment within the Church Year. Is it the intoxicating effect of Saint Michael's Summer with the peculiar quality of its light? Is it the procession of saints that passes before our eyes, or should I say, through our hearts? These are days almost excessively rich in grace.
Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael descend first on September 29th, in a cloud of incense and a blaze of light. Christ Himself is all their beauty: decus angelorum. Ask them to teach you to gaze with faith and with holy desire upon the Face of Christ, the Human Face of God.
Saint Jerome follows on the 30th, absorbed in the Scriptures, with his lion plodding sleepily along beside him, stopping only for those who need a word of encouragement in the labour of lectio divina. Ask him to obtain for you the grace to practice lectio divina as a Holy Communion with Christ.
On October 1st a young Carmelite smiles: Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, Doctor of the Church. As she passes she lets roses fall; she says nothing, but in her eyes shines a message of confidence for the sinners whose company she has always preferred. Ask her for an increase of hope.
And there are more...

I've also added a new Irish Priest 'blog to my links: Fr John Hogan's Ex Umbris et Imaginibus.  (I almost wish I'd chosen that as the title for my 'blog...)

Over at The Preaching Life, Fr SC recounts a favourite anecdote of a mutual Dominican friend:

During one particular homily one of the preachers recounted a conversation he had with an old friend. This friend had been very successful in business, he was a real high flyer. And as things go, as he succeeded in his business life, he abandoned, or at least 'down graded' his spiritual life, and gave up on the Sacraments. One day the two friends were talking and religion came up. The priest's friend explained who he thought religion was a good idea, but that 'institutional' church was not something for him. He began to explain that he saw God as an energy, somewhere out there, a life force to be tapped into when you needed it. (A common enough idea, these days, by the way.) The learned Dominican retorted "How do you expect me to have a relationship with a battery?!"

I'm probably stealing that one for this Sunday's homily!

Finally, I can't wait to start using the corrected English translation of the Roman Missal which is due to come into effect in just over a year's time.  The current translation regretably obscures some of the more theologically powerful parts of our Mass.  I've often wanted to preach on a particular liturgical point but don't really fancy beginning a homily with the words If you look up the Latin text of this prayer... Anyway, the Church Music Association of America have produced Youtube videos of the new Mass texts chanted. Have a listen to get used to the new texts, and hopefully these videos will encourage those priests who can sing to use these melodies when the corrected translation comes into effect. 

Ash Wednesday

Remember man that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return...
Repent and believe in the Gospel

The liturgy today affords the priest a choice - he can chose either of those prayers as he applies ashes on the faithful today. This is my first year being in a parish for Ash Wednesday so I distributed ashes for the first time ever today. Between those attending the morning mass and the students in the schools I look after, I've probably distributed ashes to well over 500 people - and the evening Mass is still to come.

Now, I have a certain affection for the old-fashioned "Remember man that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return" and was always mildly irked as a layman that I never came across a priest who used it. However, as it suited the cathechesis I gave the school children, I used "Repent and believe in the Gospel" at the schools. (I was pleasantly surprised that some of the kids asked me about the whole mortality symbolism of the ashes without any prompting.)

Anyway, probably the most sombre moment of the day was when a mother and child came up for ashes at Mass. I asked the woman whether she wanted ashes for the child as well, and she nodded. It's difficult to say to a babe in arms, "Remember man that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return", but it was more appropriate than the other option. Whether we realise it or not, our death casts a shadow from the first moment of our life.

This Sunday's Readings...

We're fortunate in Ireland that the Feast of the Epiphany is celebrated on the 6th of January, so we have the wonderful readings of the 2nd Sunday after Christmas tomorrow morning. A friend of mine from seminary suggested that the core of the Gospel would be preserved if, through some freak occurrence, the New Testament were lost except for the Letter of St Paul to the Galatians. I keep meaning to re-read Galatians with that hypothetical scenario in mind in order to make sense of what he was saying.
As I was reading the 2nd Reading and Gospel of this Sunday's liturgy, I realised that a somewhat similar claim could be made about those two readings. Between them they manage to encapsulate much of what is most central to our faith. If one were to commit them to memory, one would have the answers to the most pressing existential and philosophical questions.
The Second Reading ( Ephesians 1:3-6. 15-18) summarises God's plan for us quite nicely:

Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ. Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ for his own kind purposes, to make us praise the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the Beloved.

That will explain why I, having once heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus, and the love that you show towards all the saints, have never failed to remember you in my prayers and to thank God for you. May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit

The Gospel (John 1-1-18), on the other hand, is virtually a complete Credo and a summary of all that follows in John's Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word:
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things came to be,
not one thing had its being but through him.
All that came to be had life in him
and that life was the light of men,
a light that shines in the dark,
a light that darkness could not overpower

A man came, sent by God.
His name was John.
He came as a witness,
as a witness to speak for the light,
so that everyone might believe through him.
He was not the light,
only a witness to speak for the light.

The Word was the true light
that enlightens all men;
and he was coming into the world.
He was in the world
that had its being through him,
and the world did not know him.
He came to his own domain
and his own people did not accept him.
But to all who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God,
to all who believe in the name of him
who was born not out of human stock
or urge of the flesh
or will of man
but of God himself.
The Word was made flesh, he lived among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory that is his
as the only Son of the Father,
full of grace and truth.
John appears as his witness. He proclaims:
'This is the one of whom I said:
He who comes after me ranks before me
because he existed before me'.

Indeed, from his fulness we have, all of us, received –
yes, grace in return for grace,
since, though the Law was given through Moses,
grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God;
it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father's heart,
who has made him known.

Back in the day that (up to the words 'grace and truth') was recited by the priest at the end of Mass as the 'last Gospel'. There was a decided wisdom in repeating the richest of scriptural passages after each and every Mass.

A very apt letter on funerals...

From the letters page of Irish Times:

Madam, - Last year I returned to Ireland for the funeral of my late father. He was a practising Catholic and his funeral took place in his local parish church.

At that time we had hoped that several pieces of Dad's favourite music might form part of the celebration, as well as a short tribute from my eldest brother.

We encountered a young(ish) priest who while extremely polite and sympathetic absolutely refused to permit any "secular" elements in the Mass, quoting liturgical correctness as the main reason. While deeply unhappy, we had no option but to acquiesce. I was enraged therefore to see that Ronnie Drew had a "send-off" like no other complete with a congregational rendering of Wila wila wallya, and all presided over by an auxiliary bishop of Dublin. Perhaps celebrity ensures an appropriately robed bishop as chorus master.

It is either permitted or not to have "secular elements" and one's status should have no bearing on the matter. This is another example of the hypocrisy which is turning many from holy mother church. - Yours, etc,

LAURENCE LACEY, Rue de Blayes, Toulouse, France.

It's difficult not to sympathise with the letter-writer in this case. Many of our dioceses have regulations about acceptable music and the giving of eulogies at funerals. They're sensible, and mean that the deceased and the bereaved receive the benefit of the Church's liturgy and the care of the parish community. Whether clergy are applying these regulations consistently or not is another issue.
For those who do, it's therefore disheartening when celebrity and political funerals come along which don't seem to follow best practice. It gives the impression that the Church has one set of rules for the famous and another for the ordinary man. It obscures the fact that all are equal before the judgement of God. It diffuses a misleading and false impression about what the funeral liturgy is, and gives rise to unreasonable expectations about what is acceptable in a Catholic Church. Pastorally, it makes the planning of funerals more traumatic than it need be, and (as in this case) has the potential to upset the bereaved who will feel that they have been treated unjustly by their local priest.
Adherence to the rubrics is about more than a desire for the abstract value of 'liturgical correctness' - rather, it is also an eminently pastoral approach which is aimed at giving the People of God the benefit of the Church's liturgy.

I didn't see any of the media coverage of Ronnie Drew's funeral, so I can't really say how out-of-line the liturgy was. Nor, in these cases, is every detail of the liturgy approved by the presiding cleric in advance. Sometimes these things can be 'sprung' on a celebrant. One can hardly imagine the idea of Weela weela wallia being sung in a church being approved by anyone with a sensitivity to the liturgy.

Epiphany Proclamation for Ireland (2008)

Dear brothers and sisters,
the glory of the Lord has shone upon us,
and shall ever be manifest among us,
until the day of his return.

Through the rhythms of times and seasons
let us celebrate the mysteries of salvation.

Let us recall the year’s culmination, the Easter Triduum of the Lord:
his last supper, his crucifixion, his burial, and his rising,
celebrated between the evening of the 20th of March
and the evening of the 23rd of March.

Each Easter —as on each Sunday—
the Holy Church makes present the great and saving deed
by which Christ has for ever conquered sin and death.
From Easter are reckoned all the days we keep holy.

Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent,
will occur on the 6th of February.
The Ascension of the Lord will be commemorated
on the 4th of May.
Pentecost, the joyful conclusion of the season of Easter,
will be celebrated on the 11th of May.
And this year the First Sunday of Advent
will be on the 30th of November.

Likewise the pilgrim Church proclaims the Passover of Christ
in the feasts of the holy Mother of God,
in the feasts of the Apostles and Saints,
and in the commemoration of the faithful departed.

To Jesus Christ, who was, who is, and who is to come,
Lord of time and history,
be endless praise, for ever and ever.
Amen.