The Gravitas of Greeting
Greeting people these days is a challenge. Everyone, it seems, is looking down. The continual texting and checking of emails might make technological connections easier, but it’s not very conducive to face to face communication. We are so buried in our ‘I’-phones, ‘I’-pads and ‘I’-pods, that we scarcely catch a glimpse anymore of the ‘eyes’ of those around us.
This is a far cry from what the liturgy envisions in its opening exchange. The Church offers the priest-presider three options with which to greet the body of Christ at the beginning of mass. Perhaps the most used and best known is the simple phrase “The Lord be with you.” These words, as do many of the words in our liturgy, come from scripture. We find them in Ruth 2:4, Judges 6:12, 2 Chronicles 15:2, and Luke 1:28. “The Lord be with you” was a common greeting in biblical times and a constant reminder of the Lord’s presence among his people. That greeting is not changing in the new translation of the Roman Missal.
However, our current response, “And also with you,” will be changing to “And with your spirit.” These words reflect more closely the original Latin phrase, “Et cum spiritu tuo.” This phrase can also be found in scripture in 2 Timothy 4:22, Galatians 6:18, Philippians 4:23, Philemon 25. They conclude the letters of St. Paul to these various Christian communities. Here, Paul is saying more than just “Good-bye.” He is reminding those communities that they live a new existence, one which is guided by the Spirit who dwells among them. Likewise, this exchange opens our liturgy to remind us that we gather in the name of the triune God who is continually present within and among us. Despite our “I” madness, let us pray that these new words can help us form a greater “we” for the life of the world.
O Lord, help us to be more attentive to one another. AMEN.
Time to Change
I don’t watch television much. But, one program I do look forward to each week is Restaurant Impossible. Aired on the Food Network, it features Chef Robert Irvine who does his best to save restaurant owners in the red. Irvine has 48 hours and ten-thousand dollars to help them start turning a profit. Most of the time this means changing the exteriors: the food, menu, and décor. But, it also means changing the interiors: the owners themselves. Irvine challenges them to change their ways of doing business and their ways of being in relationship with their partners, their staff and their customers. That always proves to be the hardest part. But, as the program demonstrates week after week, if the owners aren’t willing to undergo an interior conversion, it doesn’t matter if a menu item like Pork Salad changes up to Spinach and Mint-Basil Pesto-Stuffed Pork Loin.
The Church is about to make an exterior change in its liturgy. We will soon receive a new Sacramentary (the big red book used by the priest during Mass). Some of the prayers and responses we use at Mass will change. Changing the words we pray will be a challenge, but over time and with repetition, it will become easier. The real challenge will be changing ourselves which is the purpose of all our liturgical prayers. Our liturgical prayers are changing because church officials believed it best that they be closer to the original Latin language in which they were written. But, the real language of the liturgy is always the language of conversion. If we have no desire to change our inner selves, then it really doesn’t matter if we say “and also with you,” (current translation) or, “and with your spirit,” (future translation). As Restaurant Impossible teaches, inner change is not only crucial, it’s good for business!
O Lord, give us the desire to change our hearts. AMEN.
The Power of Ritual
Like many stroke patients, Mom struggled to regain what she had lost. The days following a cerebral hemorrhage left her aphasic. She had difficulty expressing herself and comprehending others. She could only utter a few words that were clear. Yet, the influence of her Catholic faith was not lost. She called every doctor and male nurse “Father” and every female nurse “Sister.” But, there was another element of her faith that would prove significant. We took her to the hospital chapel for Mass. I remember her courageous attempt to sing the opening song. Next came the words and the motions of the sign of the cross. Then, a robust “and also with you” response to the priest’s greeting. Throughout the liturgy, she scarcely missed a beat. This woman who could remember only a few words was able to pray her way through an entire Mass. It was as if the lights in my Mother’s brain, dimmed by the stroke, were powered back on by the power of ritual.
Another reminder of the power of ritual came on September 11th, 2001. Like other churches, ours was filled to capacity that night. Droves of people came to pray, to lament, and to mourn with one another in a time of national crisis. But, they were also drawn to church because of the power of ritual. Because ritual is orderly, stable and familiar, it offers a sense of comfort when we need it the most. When our worldly order has been turned upside-down and we are made vulnerable by personal crisis or national catastrophe, it is religious ritual that helps transform our chaos. This is because our liturgy is an expression of God’s very being, whose first act was to transform a chaotic wasteland into an ordered world. Let us pray that our liturgies help order our lives toward the will of God.
O Lord, help us to trust in times of chaos. AMEN.
To adapt or not to adapt?
There is a debate currently raging in the arts world. At issue: the adaptation of the cultural landmark opera “Porgy and Bess.” The opera about life as an African-American on fictitious “Catfish Row” in Charleston, South Carolina was first performed in 1935 with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward and lyrics by Ira Gershwin. “Porgy and Bess” is considered by many to be America’s greatest opera. But the current director of the revival thinks she can improve the work by adding new scenes, inventing biographical details, and most radically, changing the ending to reflect a more hopeful outcome. The title has also been changed to “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.” These changes have drawn fire from critics who say the monumental work has withstood the test of time and that the changes have distorted the original intent of the authors.
The debates over adaptation are not for theater only. For centuries, the Church has debated how to adapt its liturgy so that it can best speak to the current culture while maintaining its original meaning and purpose. As you can tell by the above example, this is no easy task. In the past several years, the Church has been debating the adaptation of the language of the prayers we pray at Mass. Church officials looked at the original Latin prayers composed in the 8th century and determined that our current prayers did not accurately reflect the intent of the original prayers. Thus, the Church has once again adapted the prayers, this time to more closely reflect those original Latin prayers. We will begin praying with these new prayers on the first Sunday of Advent, around the time that the new adaptation of “Porgy and Bess” opens on Broadway.
O Lord, give wisdom to those charged with adapting the prayers of the liturgy. AMEN
Sources
“Google it!” That seems to be one of our most common contemporary catchphrases. We use Internet search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing along with the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as our go-to sources for just about everything. Knowledge is literally at the tip of our fingers.
Have you ever wondered what we use as our go-to source for Mass? How does the priest and deacon know what to say and when? How do we know when to stand and kneel and sit and process and sing? All of these answers are contained in the Roman Missal. The Roman Missal is the big red book used mainly by the priest at Mass. In that book is found not only the prayers for Mass, but also instructions on how to carry out the Mass. The Roman Missal is the English translation for the Latin Missale Romanum. This book is also called the Sacramentary.
The Sacramentary is our latest prayer book. But from the beginning the Church has sought to revise and reform its prayers and books. The first centuries of Christian prayer were improvised. As worship became more formalized, various books evolved with prayers, readings, chants and instructions on how to pray. Different countries prayed different prayers in different styles. But, Church authorities were continually trying to encourage everyone to pray the same prayers in the same way by using similar prayer books. The Council of Trent in the late 16th century called not only for reforms of the current prayer books used in various dioceses, but imposed a single Roman missal to be used throughout the Latin Church. This uniformity was made easy by the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press in the 15th century. Now the entire Catholic world could literally be on the same page. The Roman Missal has been reformed once again. The structure of the Mass will be the same. The changes made are changes in the prayers themselves. The prayers adhere more closely to the original Latin prayers. We will begin praying with these new words on the First Sunday of Advent. May these prayers encourage us to keep God as our “go-to” source for living.
Lord, help us as we prepare to pray in new ways. Amen.