What Might Christ Say to Us in the Confessional?

We enter today into the chief penitential season of the Latin Church’s liturgical year. After the loosening up of the 1960s, it isn’t very penitential anymore, although one might well think that Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are worse than ever because no one has built up a habit of fasting, and so we hit those days like a car without shock absorbers running into mountainous speedbumps. Be that as it may, we are always free in Christ to embrace more mortifications, such as abstaining from all meat, or skipping one of the meals of the day, or cutting back on caffeinated beverages—the possibilities are numerous in the affluent West.

Let us remember that, in the sobering words of Dom Eugene Boylan, “It would seem that there are special graces that will not be given to souls unless someone pays a special price for them in penance and suffering.”

This might be the advice that Our Lord would give us if He were sitting in the confessional and we happened to come in, with our assorted burdens. He would free us from those burdens, but then ask us to take on some other burdens voluntarily, for the sake of His Mystical Body. Not merely to fulfill a penance (which is often easy enough), but to pay that special price that has been put on the rescue of this or that soul, in order to give a lowly believer the dignity of being a little co-redeemer, beneath and with Christ, in union with His Mother at the foot of the Cross.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider, in a book from Emmaus Road that was too little noticed when it appeared—I am referring to Man of God: The Catholic Priest and the Cornerstones of His Life—writes: “Fleeing from or rejecting the cross and the Christian practice of interior and exterior mortification leads to a lukewarm and spiritually sterile life.” He then cites a remarkable passage from Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange’s book The Priest in Union with Christ, published more than seventy years ago:

There are at present in the world many people who wish to suppress all forms of mortification, penance, and reparation; they are anxious to destroy the cross and the spirit of sacrifice as being opposed to the modern spirit of so-called liberty or license and uncontrolled pleasure. Consequently their lives have become completely barren, because no one has ever been known to scale great heights without a spirit of sacrifice. […]
          In view of this widespread sterility in human endeavor many would-be reformers are asserting that what is needed is a new approach to the priestly and religious life, in order to adapt them to the needs of the modern era. So far as the religious life is concerned, they are of the opinion that its austerity ought to be mitigated since it is now out of date: time devoted to prayer should be cut down to leave more time for external activities. They would also adapt the priestly life to the spirit of the times: to them it seems no longer suitable for priests to wear a special dress or the tonsure or any outward sign of their priesthood, or even to recite the breviary—perhaps even celibacy has become outmoded—and so on.
          Such has been the attitude adopted by many Protestants, and it is of interest to remember that Luther in cutting himself off from the Church immediately renounced the three religious vows…. And why has their enthusiasm for the glory of God and the salvation of souls waned? For want of the spirit of sacrifice. The priest has failed to recognize that he must be a victim in union with Christ, and that he cannot save souls except through the same means as Christ himself used. It is only this spirit of sacrifice which can rectify disorder in the soul of a priest or religious, and thus make way for genuine charity bringing in its train peace and joy, which spread themselves to other souls. Take away mortification and you immediately take away joy, because once the affections of man are allowed to settle on things of sense they can no longer be raised to God and the supernatural.
          There is certainly no need to remodel the priestly and religious lives and thus imitate the modernist renovation of dogma. (pp. 67-68)

Bishop Schneider also quotes a most remarkable passage from the little-known spiritual writer Fr. Claude Arvisenet, who imagines what Christ would say to his priest in the confessional. Now that we are entering into a season in which many Catholics will be seeking out the sacrament of penance, this advice may be timely:

My son, if thou upbraidest them harshly in the beginning, or even unnecessarily in the course of their confession, what will happen? The last sheep that is at the very door of the fold will flee away in terror, thinking that he has found a wolf, not a pastor…. Thus will perish through they fault they brother for whom I have died, to whom I have sent thee, whom I have trustfully committed to thy care. Remember, my son, that they penitent brother is a man and not an angel, and that thou art not a minister of vindictive justice, but of justice tempered by mercy….
          Nevertheless, my son, compel them to observe all things that I have commanded thee, to cease acting perversely, and to learn to walk in the way of my commandments. Nor deem it mercy to cast pearls before swine, nor to give the bread of angels to those who delight in husks…. O false peace, which leaves war in the heart; O deceptive mercy, which produces sleep and not a cure, death and not life! O unjust judge, who, for the satisfaction of an evil-desiring man, prostitutes my authority!
          Truly, my son, one who knowingly, or even through culpable lack of knowledge, absolves a sinner who is not contrite nor converted from his evil ways, dares to bestow my peace upon my enemy while he still hates me, hands me over to him to be crucified at his hands. See, my son, how sometimes my house becomes a den of thieves; see how these careless priests fail in their duty. O modern Pilates, who thus through cowardice and culpable weakness hand me over to whosoever would again crucify me! O my son, far be such iniquity from thee, such cruel and sinful kindness. Remember that the power and precept was given to thee not only to loose but also to bind.
          Therefore exercise the greatest care, that in thy ministry mercy and truth may meet each other and justice and peace may kiss. Thus shalt thou be a faithful and prudent dispenser of my mysteries.

This is the something which the whole Church needs to be reminded of, a better counsel than the obsessively one-sided “mercy for all and for everything”, or advice to priests that they should “always” absolve everyone who comes to the confessional, and that in some cases those who are in an adulterous relationship should be allowed to confess without an intention of avoiding future sin by living as brother and sister. One only wonders what Arvisenet, who died in 1831, would have said about such brash assertions of the modern era against the divine law. One wonders what the Lord would say—or, rather, has already said.

For, as Msgr. Ronald Knox reminds us, in a literary memento mori well suited to the start of Lent:

“Hodie eris mecum in Paradiso, this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise”—let us remember that today may be the last of its series. When you go to bed, you will wind up your watch just as usual, your letters will be speeding this way and that, assuring your friends that you are well. And then, in the night, just a click in the mechanism of your body, a moment of horror in your dreams; and tomorrow morning the bell will be tolling for you, and your soul will have met God in judgment.

East-West Disagreements about the Epiclesis and Transubstantiation

Back in February, Hieromonk Enoch published an article entitled “Pre-Schism West Against the Scholastic View of Eucharistic Consecration.” The author weaves together a fabric of half-digested quotations from Western and Eastern authors to argue his claim that it was not the words of institution (Hoc est enim Corpus meum, Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei, etc.) but the Supplices te rogamus prayer that was seen by “pre-Schism” Latins as the prayer that effected the mystery of transubstantiation.

It is certainly true that the Eucharistic Prayer was understood in a more holistic sense by our predecessors who were not yet in the grips of what can be called “neoscholastic reductionism,” but it is certainly going too far to claim that granting a special status to the words of Christ spoken over the elements was a medieval scholastic development.

Ludwig Ott’s ever helpful Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (I shall be referring to the revised edition from Baronius Press, with a corrected translation newly typeset) qualifies the following proposition as sententia certa: “The form of the Eucharist consists in Christ’s Words of institution, uttered at the Consecration” (416). He continues:

While the Greek-Orthodox Church wrongly placed the power of change either in the Epiclesis alone, following after the narrative of the institution, or in the connection of the words of institution with the Epiclesis (Confessio orth. I 107), the Catholic Church adheres firmly to the view that the priest consummates the transubstantiation solely by the uttering of the words of institution.

Ott then cites the Decretum pro Armenis of Florence and the parallel passage of Trent, and makes an argument from the Gospel narrative. He then cites testimonies from Tertullian (“He took bread…and made it into His Body, by speaking: ‘This is my Body,’” Adv. Marc. IV 40), St. Ambrose (“The words of Christ bring about this Sacrament,” De sacr. IV 4,14), and St. John Chrysostom (“The priest stands there and sets up the outward sign, while speaking these words; but the power and the grace are of God. ‘This is my body,’ he says. These words transmute the gifts,” De proditione Judae, Hom. I 6). Implicit testimonies are cited from St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus, and Origen; St. John Damascene metnions both the words of institution and the Epiclesis (De fide orth. IV 13).

So, then, what are we to make of the Epiclesis? I find the next bit in Ott especially interesting:

In agreement with Cardinal Bessarion, the words of the Epiclesis are to be taken as referring to the time to which they are related, and not to the time at which they are spoken. That which happens in one single moment in the consecration is liturgically developed and explained in the subsequent words of the Epiclesis. It has only a declaratory, and no consecratory, significance. The view of H. Schell that the Greeks consecrate by the Epiclesis alone, and the Latins by the words of institution alone, must be rejected, since the substance of the Sacraments is not within the disposition of the Church. DH 3556. (417)

Cardinal Basilios Bessarion (1403-1472)

An enlightening discussion of this issue is found in Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange’s grand commentary on the Summa theologiae, much of which, sadly, has never been translated. For my students in Gaming, Austria, some time ago I produced a translation (available here) of interesting passages in De Eucharistia et Poenitentia. On Tertia Pars, question 78, we find this commentary:

It is clear that the questions that have arisen between Catholics and schismatics concerning the form of consecration and the epiclesis may only now be treated, the questions of the Real Presence and of transubstantiation being presupposed.
       To begin with, we have before our eyes definitions of the Church. The Church has declared that the form of this sacrament are the words of Christ, not the epiclesis (the subsequent prayer, as the Greeks call it). Cf. Denz. 414, 698, 715, 876, 938, 3043, 3035. [1] The Council of Florence (D. 698) says: “The form of this sacrament are the Savior’s words, with which he confected this sacrament; the priest then speaking in persona Christi, confects this sacrament. For by the power of those words the substance of bread is converted into the body of Christ, and the substance of wine into His blood.” ... The Council of Trent (D. 876) says: “By the force of the words [of consecration], the body of Christ is under the appearance of bread and the blood under the appearance of wine.” [See also D. 938 and 949.]
       Innocent IV, in the year 1254, concerning the Greek rite, declares: “The Greeks should be permitted to celebrate Masses at the hour which is according to their own custom, provided that they observe, in the confection or consecration, the very words expressed and handed down by the Lord” (D. 3043). In fact, Pius X, in the year 1910 (D. 3035), condemning doctrine recently defended, declares against certain errors of the Orientals: [in brief, consecration is effected by the words of consecration, not by the epiclesis, which is not strictly necessary]. Denziger notes here that many earlier popes have declared that the epiclesis is not required for consecration, namely Benedict XII (D. 532), Clement VI, Benedict XIII, Benedict XIV and Pius VII.
       From the fourteenth century on, schismatic Greeks say that the Eucharist is confected by the prayers which are poured out after the words “This is my body, This is my blood” have been pronounced, according to their liturgical prayers as follows: “We beseech you, Father, that you send Your spirit over us and over these gifts set before us, and make this bread the precious body of your Son and that which is in the chalice the precious blood of your Son.” To say that this prayer is necessary for consecration is to affirm that the Masses celebrated in the Roman Church are invalid and is, moreover, contrary to the declaration of the Council of Florence (D. 698 and 715). The chief proponents of this error were Cabasilas, Mark of Ephesus, and Simeon of Thessalonica, who were refuted by Cardinal Bessarion in his work De Eucharistia, as well as by Allatius and Arcudius. (Cf. Dict. Théol. Cath., s. v. «Epiclèse», P. Salaville.)

Then Garrigou-Lagrange proceeds to give an account of the liturgical meaning of the epiclesis:

There is a twofold explanation of the meaning of the epiclesis after the words of consecration.
       (1) One explanation is: When it is read after the consecration, as it now is [in the Greek rite], the epiclesis invokes the Holy Spirit, not to effect transubstantiation, which is already accomplished, that is, not so that the bread become the body of Christ, but that it may become this for us, namely, that it may profit the priest and the faithful, especially those who are going to receive communion. In this way speak Vasquez, Bellarmine, Suárez, de Lugo, Billuart, and among the recent authors, Billot. But this explanation does not seem literal enough [i.e., it doesn’t account for the seemingly obvious meaning of the prayer].
       (2) The second explanation, which is more common, was proposed by Cardinal Bessarion. The epiclesis invokes the Holy Spirit exactly inasmuch as the consecration, being a work ad extra, is common to the three divine Persons, and accordingly the Holy Spirit is invoked, so that, with the Father and the Son already having been invoked, He Himself [in unity with them] may bring about transubstantiation. Indeed, this transubstantiation is accomplished in an instant, by the words of consecration already pronounced; but because, by our human speech, all these things cannot be expressed in one and the same instant, “things which are completed in an instant are declared one after another.” In this way speak Bessarion, Bossuet, Ferraris, Cagin, Franzelin, Salaville.

Later, Garrigou notes that a similar principle is at work in the narrative of the Last Supper, where Jesus takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and speaks the words: “narration is successive and announces words after facts, when really the words spoken are simultaneous with the facts.” [2]

These two theories, in spite of their superficial disagreement, help us to understand the “moment of consecration” in a non-reductionist sense. Even if there must be a moment after which the real Body or Blood of Our Lord is present and thus deserving of the worship of latreia, as we can extrapolate from the behavior of clergy in every traditional Eucharistic rite [3], nevertheless beings like ourselves, who live, think, and speak in time, must pray in such a way that our anaphoras (and our liturgies as a whole) draw out, step by step as it were, the meaning of mysteries that occur timelessly.

The reason why this kind of temporal disjunction happens is not hard to see. We humans can only speak of an instantaneous coming-to-be in language of change and therefore of measurable duration (consider all the troubles theologians have had to face when speaking of “creation ex nihilo”). Thus, every orthodox Christian liturgy speaks at length of the conversion of the gifts—it calls down the Spirit, recalls or repeats the institution, offers up the gifts to the heavenly Father, and so on (in different sequences for different rites)—but really, these things are occurring simultaneously. This we cannot express with our time-bound language.

This explains why traditional rites grow, over time, in their textual witness to the substance of what is happening: they grow in doctrinal precision, spiritual amplitude, poetic grandeur, and ascetical demands. It would be unworthy of the magnitude of the moment of consecration to treat it cheaply and to think that, having said “the magic words,” we’re pretty close to being done with what we have come to do. The attitude of a true believer is quite the opposite: so great is this moment that it must be surrounded by wall after wall of language, silence, chant, incense, gesture; it must be placed like a mighty jewel in the most exquisite setting; it must be approached by many steps, and these not always audaciously forward-moving, but sometimes circular, hesitant, reiterative.

Thus, so far from supporting a reductionist view of consecration, the position summarized by Garrigou-Lagrange works against it, and in favor of the fullness of expression one finds in the Greek tradition as well as in the undeformed Latin tradition.


NOTES

[1] These are not the most up-to-date Denzinger numbers; they would reflect the edition nearest 1948.

[2] We need not linger here over the issue of whether or not the traditional Roman Rite has or ever had an epiclesis, and whether its absence is anything of a defect. The debate has gone back and forth for a long time. Readers today are likely to encounter it in two authors: Martin Mosebach and Fr. John Hunwicke. Mosebach claims that the Veni Sanctificator of the Offertory is an epiclesis. Hunwicke, having noted that the Roman Canon predates the Macedonian controversy through which the epiclesis entered the Greek liturgy, argues that the Roman Canon rests on a theology of the Father’s omnipotent good pleasure sufficient to account for the transformation of the gifts when He is asked to do so in the Name of His beloved Son (see here for an NLM round-up).

[3] I defend this position in my article “On ‘Pinpointing’ Consecration: A Letter for the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.” I also defended this position in the hardest possible case, namely, for an anaphora that seems to lack the words of institution. See my article “Doing and Speaking in the Person of Christ: Eucharistic Form in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 313–79. Br. Ansgar Santogrossi has subjected my arguments to a welcome critique; some portions of this may be found here and here. I am not particularly wedded to a defense of this anaphora. My stated goal was simply to see if any way could be found, on the basis of principles of Thomistic sacramental theology, to explain how transubstantiation might be efficaciously signified and recognized without the words of institution.

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Who’s Afraid of Predestination?

Not the Roman Catholic Church, who prays in her central prayer, the Roman Canon:

Hanc igitur oblationem servitutis nostrae, sed et cunctae familiae tua, quaesumus, Domine, ut placatus accipias: diesque nostros in tua pace disponas, atque ab aeterna damnatione nos eripi, et in electorum tuorum jubeas grege numerari. 

We therefore beseech Thee, O Lord, to be appeased and accept this oblation of our service, as also of Thy whole family; and to dispose our days in Thy peace, and command that we be rescued from eternal damnation and numbered among the flock of Thine elect.

This petition is a liturgical distillation of the teaching of the Apostle Paul, as found especially in Romans 8 and Ephesians 1.

Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself: according to the purpose of his will … In whom we also are called by lot, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will. (Eph 1:5, 1:11).

For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son; that he might be the firstborn amongst many brethren. And whom he predestinated, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified. (Rom 8:29–30).

Verifying yet again the Golden Axiom lex orandi, lex credendi, we find this truth perfectly enshrined in a number of places in the usus antiquior, such as the Dies Irae Sequence of the Requiem Mass, and in the following Secret from the Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost:

Pro nostrae servitutis augmento sacrificium tibi, Domine, laudis offerimus: ut, quod immeritis contulisti, propitius exsequaris.

May this sacrifice of praise that we offer to Thee, O Lord, be for an increase of our servitude [i.e., our service to Thee]: that what Thou hast begun without our merits Thou mayest mercifully bring to completion.

In what is perhaps the most beautiful of all such liturgical testimonies, the Postcommunion for the usus antiquior Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, a relatively recent addition from the 16th century (and incorporated into the general calendar in the 18th), reads thus:

Omnipotens æterne Deus, qui creasti et redemisti nos, respice propitius vota nostra: et sacrificium salutaris hostiæ, quod in honorem nominis Filii tui, Domini nostri Jesu Christi, majestati tuæ obtulimus, placido et benigno vultu suscipere digneris; ut gratia tua nobis infusa, sub glorioso nomine Jesu, æternæ prædestinationis titulo gaudeamus nomina nostra scripta esse in cælis.

O almighty and everlasting God Who didst create and redeem us, look graciously upon our prayer, and with a favourable and benign countenance deign to accept the sacrifice of the saving Victim, which we have offered to Thy Majesty in honour of the Name of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: that through the infusion of Thy grace we may rejoice that our names are written in heaven, under the glorious Name of Jesus, the pledge of eternal predestination.[1]

The doctrine of predestination (with varying accents and nuances) was taught without embarrassment by all the Fathers of the Church, and received its definitive account in Question 23 of the Prima Pars of the Summa theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas. In the twentieth century, Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange devoted much of his labor to explicating and defending the Angelic Doctor’s teaching on just this point, as, for example, in his excellent (if unimaginatively titled) book Predestination.

If anyone doubts that the Catholic Church has always taught and still teaches the doctrine of predestination — obviously, not an erroneous Protestant version of it, but the true notion — he may satisfy himself by consulting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nn. 257, 600, 2012, 2782, and 2823. The Catechism deftly steers clear of the Dominican-Molinist controversy by merely repeating multiple times the statements of St. Paul, and adding only this gloss: “To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he established his eternal plan of ‘predestination,’ he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace” (n. 600).

From the main portal of Notre Dame cathedral, Paris

Command that we be rescued from eternal damnation and numbered among the flock of Thine elect. With this pair of entreaties, the Roman Canon repudiates the universalist mentality of our age, which assumes that men will be saved unless they conscientiously and egregiously reject God. On the contrary, the Canon embodies the truth of the Catholic Faith as taught by the Fathers, Doctors, and premodern Popes of the Church, for whom man, due to his inheritance of original sin, cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven unless he dies and rises with Christ in baptism.

Without entering here into subtle exegesis of John 3, we can say as a matter of fact that the consensus of Catholic theologians from ancient times until the early twentieth century was that mankind is a massa damnata (“condemned crowd”) and that Christ came into the world to save sinners from the destruction due to our sins, inherited and actual. The sole path of salvation is to be clothed with Christ,[2] incorporated into His Mystical Body, and to die in a state of sanctifying grace. As Scott Hahn says in a lecture on the Gospel of John, “the history of salvation is also the history of damnation”: Christ came into the world for judgment, to cause separation by revealing the truth and exposing darkness.[3] This is why the Roman Martyrology carefully records not only the names of each martyr, but the names of their persecutors as well.

Moreover, in utter opposition to Pelagianism, the Church teaches that God, not man, takes the first step in the renewal of our life; that all our sufficiency is from Him (2 Cor 3:5); that no man comes to Jesus unless the Father draws him (Jn 6:44); that we become adopted sons of God by His predestinating purpose (Eph 1:5); that we persevere by His gift, not by our own efforts. In short, God must number us in the flock of His chosen ones; He knowingly and lovingly chooses us to be the “rational sheep” (as the Akathist hymn says) of His flock. He does not, as it were, happen to find us there in the sheepfold and express pleasant surprise; He brings us there and keeps us there.

All this the Roman Canon succinctly transmits in words as simple as they are sobering: Command that we be rescued from eternal damnation and numbered among the flock of Thine elect.

But why is this doctrine important to us spiritually?

In modern times we are constantly told how good we are, how well-intentioned, and how much we are victims of our environment or upbringing, entitled to various compensations. We are reassured of the greatness of man, of his dignity and rights. But we are in sore danger of forgetting fundamental truths about our condition. We are fallen beings alienated from God, from our neighbors, even from our very selves. We have no rights to stand on before God; we are like “filthy rags,” as Isaiah says (Is 64:4). We are utterly dependent on the divine Mercy at every moment — for our very existence, for our conversion to good, for our repentance from evil, for our escape from damnation, and above all, for the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus.

We stand at the edge of an abyss of neverending misery into which we may fall at any moment by mortal sin, if our life is snuffed out before we have repented of it, or if the Lord does not, in His mercy, prevent us from falling or, after we have fallen, grant us the gift of repentance. “Lead us not into temptation…” Lead us not into the abyss. Command that we be rescued from eternal damnation. This is reality, as opposed to the shallow fantasy of egoism, the “broad path that leads to destruction,” with which our contemporary culture envelops us.

We stand, too, at the edge of an upward abyss, that of the neverending bliss of heaven, into which we are drawn up out of ourselves, in reverse gravity, to the supernatural grandeur of the sons of God. This, too, is a gift we could never have merited; Christ alone won it for us by shedding His Precious Blood upon the Cross, in the one supreme sacrifice that is made present at every offering of the Holy Mass. It is precisely on the verge of making this sacrifice newly present in our midst that we humbly beseech the Lord: Command that we be numbered among the flock of Thine elect. Number us, O Lord, with the good thief to whom Thou didst say: “This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise.”

The doctrine of predestination has as its positive spiritual effects a deep and abiding thanksgiving to the Lord for His mercies without number, since He died for us while we were yet His enemies, that we might become His friends; a profound humility at having been chosen by God for no beauty of our own but solely that He might make us beautiful in His sight; a sober watchfulness and earnestness, lest our names be erased from the Book of Life; and, most of all, a constant recourse to prayer, that we will be established more and more in Christ, and not in ourselves, for it is by “being made conformable to the image of His Son” (Rom 8:29), and in no other way, that our predestination is actually accomplished.

In response to so great a mercy, the Church places the words of the Psalmist on the lips of her priests as they receive the Precious Blood, price of our souls:

What shall I render to the Lord for all the things that He hath rendered to me? I will take the chalice of salvation, and I will call upon the Name of the Lord. Praising I will call upon the Lord, and I shall be saved from mine enemies.

It is therefore of immense importance for nourishing the right faith of the people that the doctrine of predestination, transmitted pure and entire in the Roman Canon, be present to priests in their celebration of the Mass and to the people in their participation in it.[4]


NOTES

[1] In yet another display of theological “neutralization,” the Novus Ordo — from whose calendar the feast of the Holy Name had initially been purged by Paul VI, no doubt because it was a Baroque accretion, only to be replaced later under John Paul II as an “optional memorial” — politely trims down this postcommunion to an acceptable banality: “May the sacrificial gifts offered to your majesty, O Lord, to honor Christ's Name and which we have now received, fill us, we pray, with your abundant grace, so that we may come to rejoice that our names, too, are written in heaven.” The doctrine is there, but as if muffled beneath several layers of sterile cotton.

[2] Cf. Rom 13:14, Gal 3:27; cf. Mt 22:12.

[3] Cf. Jn 9:39; cf. Jn 3:16–21, 5:24–29; Lk 12:51.

[4] Although not intended to be the focus of this article, it surely ought to be disturbing from the point of view of lex orandi, lex credendi that the sole anaphora of the Western Church, prayed every day at every Mass from ancient times until the 1960s, was displaced by alternative Eucharistic prayers in 1970 — a novelty and rupture the magnitude of which had never been seen in the history of any liturgical rite. See Fr. Cassian Folsom, O.S.B., “From One Eucharistic Prayer to Many: How it Happened and Why,” first published in the Adoremus Bulletin 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6 (September, October, and November 1996). Fr. Cassian quotes an Italian liturgist on the Roman Canon: “its use today is so minimal as to be statistically irrelevant.” (This was more true of the nineties than it is today, when we are enjoying some fruits of Benedict XVI's pontificate.) This rupture best illustrates the untenability of asserting that the usus antiquior and the usus recentior are merely two versions of the same thing, namely, the Roman Rite. It makes little difference that the passages from Ephesians 1 and Romans 8 are contained in the new lectionary (e.g., Weds of week 30 per annum, year I; 17th Sunday per annum, Year A; Thurs of week 28 per annum, year II; Immaculate Conception, 2nd reading), since readings come and go, like birds at a bird-feeder, whereas the danger of damnation and the divine mercy of predestination are woven into the very fabric of the traditional Roman rite. Moreover, most of the prayers that point to predestination in the usus antiquior have been either removed or toned down in the usus recentior, so that it would be much more difficult to establish that the revised liturgy teaches clearly and unambiguously this Scriptural and traditional doctrine.

Celebration vs. Concelebration: Theological Considerations

Fr. Zuhlsdorf has often said that he believes concelebration should be “legal, safe, and rare.” Why are traditional Catholics generally so skeptical about concelebration? What could be the problem with it?

The sacrifice of the Mass is, first and foremost, Christ offering His atoning sacrifice through the ministerial priest. Objectively, therefore, two Masses are always greater in power than one, because the saving act of Christ, the main offerer, is once again applied to sinners—at least to those who are disposed to receive the effect prayed for.

Subjectively, the reverence of the one offering can obtain a greater or lesser reception of said graces for himself and for others, and to such an extent that the piety with which a Mass is offered by, for example, a Saint Philip Neri, may lead to the reception of more graces than many Masses offered by a less reverent priest. But although that is true, the overall state of the universe is better, one can say, due to the objective fact of many representations of the sacrifice of Calvary, than it would have been were there fewer. No amount of subjective devotion, which has to do with the reception of the fruits of the Mass, can ever equal the objective propitiatory and impetratory worth of a single Mass offered by Christ the High Priest through His minister.

When two priests concelebrate one Mass, a single act of sacrifice is made present through both of them together, acting in tandem as one instrument—as when several men pull on a rope together, there is one pulling of the rope, and one effect, e.g., that a heavy stone be pulled. In contrast, when two priests celebrate two Masses, Christ makes present anew, through each of them, His sacrifice to the Father; for us men and for our salvation, He has twice renewed His oblation at their consecrated hands. This multiplies the graces poured forth into the world from the Lord's most holy soul, the fountain of all gifts.

It is quite true that the concelebrants may have diverse Mass intentions and receive separate stipends, but it is no less true that among them there is no other consecration than the one that takes place on the altar at which they are all simultaneously present. Hence, there are not numerically many representations of the sacrifice of Calvary, and so there cannot be the same multiplication of the effects inherent to the offering of Mass. With separate Masses, the offering of Christ’s saving Passion is multiplied—in a sacramental way, yes, but one that is nevertheless real, not merely symbolic. As St. Thomas writes: “The oblation of the sacrifice is multiplied in several Masses, and therefore the effect of the sacrifice and of the sacrament is multiplied” (Summa theologiae III, q. 79, a. 7, ad 3).

In the encyclical Mediator Dei, Venerable Pius XII teaches that the essence of the Sacrifice of the Mass—that is, the sacramental representation of the Lord’s Passion—consists in the separate consecration of the two species of bread and wine, which makes present in a mystical way the death of Christ, when His body was separated from His blood. In a concelebrated Mass, there is only one consecration (one might say: una consecratio, multi consecrantes). Therefore, as compared with a series of private Masses, there are fewer representations of the one Sacrifice of the Cross and fewer applications of its saving power to the living and the dead.

According to the Thomistic school, of which Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange may be taken as representative, Christ the Eternal High Priest from Heaven actually offers each Mass offered through His priestly instruments on earth. The question with regard to concelebration would be, then: Does our Lord offer one hundred times when one hundred priests concelebrate, or only once? He offers only once, using the hundred concelebrants simultaneously as His instruments in effecting a single Transubstantiation and therefore a single enacting of the Sacrifice. It is like the difference between starting a single fire with one hundred matches or starting a hundred fires with as many matches: in the former case, those many matches function, essentially, as a single fire-starter, but in the latter case, they function as many fire-starters. If the Lord’s purpose in coming to earth was to set fire to it, as He Himself declared (cf. Lk 12:49), would we not want His ministers to be igniting many distinct fires every day? There is, after all, no limit to the need of the human race for this warming, illuminating, and transformative fire.

There is, of course, a canonical limit, based upon reasons of fittingness, to the number of Masses a priest may celebrate on a given day, and there can be legitimate reasons for not offering Mass on a particular day (e.g., sickness, lengthy travel, a time of war or persecution). Apart from such circumstances, there is no compelling objective reason why each priest should not daily exercise the most sublime action of his own priestly power, his ontological share in the eternal high priesthood of Christ, to give perfect worship to God and advance the salvation of the world.

Appealing to the earlier distinction between objective merit and subjective disposition, one might attempt to neutralize this conclusion by stating that a devout concelebrant will obtain more graces from the Mass than a distracted or rushed celebrant will do from a private Mass. Although this is true, in theory, of the fruits of the Mass for the individual, it does not touch the earlier argument about the objective value of the renewal of Christ’s sacrifice, the moreso as it is more often offered. More to the point, given how much easier it is to be focused on the sacrificial action and prayers in individual celebration, the subjective disposition of two priests concelebrating is very likely not going to be equal to that of the same priests celebrating individually, so the question seems an academic one. A priest friend once joked that he could prove this claim with a video camera: the disposition of concelebrants rarely seems as intent and concentrated as that of a single celebrant. Thus, in practice, concelebration will almost always confer less grace upon its many ministers and win less grace for the people than individual celebration will confer upon its single agent and the people for whom he is offering it.

Ceteris paribus, it is better for the priest himself, for the People of God, and for the world outside the Church that each priest should celebrate Mass daily, if nothing beyond his control prevents him from doing so. In this way, he most fully actualizes the potential of his ministerial priesthood, letting the Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest, make the maximum use of him as the instrument by which the fruits of His saving sacrifice will be poured out upon the human race from the rising of the sun even to its setting.

Lectio Divina: What, Where, When

Last week we saw St. Gregory the Great speaking about the immense value of the practice of lectio divina or praying with the Scriptures, and I gave a simple sketch of how it works, recommending it as a practice to take up this Lent (and then to continue beyond Lent!) if you are not already doing it.

Naturally, questions arise. How do we decide, in practical terms, what to read each day—where to go in the Bible, how much, and for how long?

What we should bear in mind is that lectio divina is not meant to be an elaborate, burdensome obligation, but a childlike encounter with God in His Word, something that will refresh us and give us light for our journey. It will stretch us and challenge us, to be sure, but in such a way that we are still led to the peace of Christ. It’s not an academic study or a rote recitation. A personally fruitful lectio divina can be done by everybody.

I

First, as to quantity. Usually several verses, up to about half a chapter, is the right amount for people living in the world. A person could read an entire chapter, but that’s a lot to read slowly and meditatively, and it’s far more important to be able to ponder what we're reading and pray about it than to “get through” a certain book. Even one verse can furnish enough material for lectio divina, if the verse really hits one in the gut. The Gospels are ideally suited to lectio for many reasons, one of which is the way they are divided into small chunks or pericopes (e.g., a parable, miracle, or conversation) that can be taken by themselves.

It is important to read slowly, really thinking about what we are reading, and if something strikes us in a new way, or if we have a sense that this particular “word” (phrase or sentence) is what we need to take to heart, we should stop and ponder that word. There is no requirement to “finish” a section of the text; one can always resume there next time. On the whole, it will do us more good to meditate and pray than to continue reading. Indeed, our powers of concentration are limited, so even if we had all day at our disposal, we would do better with several shorter times of reading mixed with a variety of other activities.

The great Thomist Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange once stated:

One single sentence from Sacred Scripture can nourish the soul, illuminate it, strengthen it in adversity. Sacred Scripture is something far superior to a simple exposition of dogma, subdivided into special tracts: it is an ocean of revealed truth in which we can taste in advance the joys of eternal life.

II

Second, as to choice of text: there are 73 books in the Bible. They fall into groupings that are extremely different from one another, not only in genre—historical or narrative, prophetic, poetic, epistolary, legislative, apocalyptic—but also in their immediate accessibility or usefulness for personal prayer. The Fathers, Doctors, and mystics of the Church reached a level of spiritual maturity that enabled them to reap a harvest from any verse in Scripture, but since we are not their equals, we need to be more humble and more realistic. Some books clearly lend themselves to lectio divina for beginners, and indeed these books are the ones that all the saints keep going back to. They are: the Psalms (and the Wisdom literature in general); the prophets, both major and minor; and every book in the New Testament, with the Gospels holding pride of place. Simply put, if we choose one of the Gospels or a psalm, it is almost impossible not to profit from meditating on that reading.

Still, there will be dry moments when we can’t make heads or tails of a reading, and that’s also a healthy experience for us: we need to realize that we are not in charge. Any fruit we reap is God’s gift to us, and when we don’t seem to be reaping fruit, it’s because He’s preparing a larger harvest for us that demands a greater faith and trust in him before it can happen. The more experienced we become with lectio, the more freely we can launch out into the deep of other parts of Scripture and find nourishment there, as well.

III

Third, as to when and where: one need not do lectio divina in a church; what is necessary is to choose a time and place of quiet, where we can let our mind and heart go into the Word of God. For some people, this could be a conveniently situated church or chapel—it is one of the few places in our noisy world that is (usually) still recognized and respected as a haven of silence. But if there is a quiet place in one’s home early in the morning, that, too, would be well suited for lectio. Indeed, so great is the dignity of the Word of God that the Church has granted a plenary indulgence, with the usual conditions, to the devout reading of Scripture for one half-hour, anywhere.

The timing is also important: we need to find a time of day that is not so busy that we will be utterly distracted. For most people, this is early in the morning; once we get started with the work day, there’s too much going on. The morning has a special quality to it that strongly recommends it as a time for lectio.

We may conclude with the rousing words of the Benedictine monk Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel (c. 760–c. 840):

For those who practice it, the experience of sacred reading sharpens perception, enriches understanding, rouses from sloth, banishes idleness, orders life, corrects bad habits, produces salutary weeping, and draws tears from contrite hearts . . . curbs idle speech and vanity, awakens longing for Christ and the heavenly fatherland.
          It must always be accompanied by prayer and intimately joined with it, for we are cleansed by prayer and taught by reading. Therefore, whoever wishes to be with God at all times must prayer often and read often, for when we pray it is we who speak with God, but when we read it is God who speaks with us.
          Every seeker of perfection advances in reading, prayer, and meditation. Reading enables us to learn what we do not know, meditation enables us to retain what we have learned, and prayer enables us to live what we have retained. Reading Sacred Scripture confers on us two gifts: it makes the soul’s understanding keener, and after snatching us from the world’s vanities, it leads us to the love of God.

(Part II of a four-part series.  Here is Part I.)