Using Sacred Art to Help Memorize the Words of the Liturgy

I have a problem. I recently recommended that we should commit passages of the liturgy to memory, in order to deepen our participation and to free us to engage with imagery. You can read about this here, in the article Rite by Rote,

The problem I have is that I struggle to commit anything to memory. This is genuinely difficult for me. I have often wondered if I missed a class I should have attended at some point in my formative years. I did quite well in classes requiring a high level of understanding such as physics, but poorly where memorization of facts or words was necessary. I’m pretty sure I could never have been a doctor, for example. The painful boredom - and I do mean painful - entailed in trying to commit lists of anatomical details to memory would have defeated me. I was a trainee accountant for about 2 months once, and left when I realized I was going to fail all my exams. I have always been hopeless at learning languages, I never managed to memorize the poems we were supposed to be able to recite, and I couldn’t take part in school plays because I knew I would forget my lines. For me, walking into a room and then forgetting what I wanted to do is not senility; it’s been happening to me since I was 10 years old.

This can even affect your social life. My parents and my grandparents were avid Bridge players, but the game was beyond me. At various stages in my life, I have tried to learn to dance with a partner, and tried Ceroc jive, for example. Being reasonably coordinated, I could manage most of the steps, but as the man is supposed to lead, and I couldn’t remember those steps five minutes after the lesson. It seems that even my muscle memory is lacking. And don’t ask me to remember your name. I regularly embarrass myself at social events when I’m unable to introduce people I’ve known for years.

I would use mnemonics, but I forget those too. I’m at the level of needing a mnemonic to help me remember my mnemonic. For example, I thought I’d found the answer when I saw a book that explained the secret of St Thomas Aquinas’ remarkable memory. Apparently, the technique involved associating names and facts with the visual memory of articles in different rooms of a house that I was familiar with. The problem for me was that I didn’t have the layout of any house committed to memory sufficiently well to enable me to do it. Now at age 57, I’m at the stage where most of the time I even forget what it is I’m supposed to remember. I live permanently in the realm of Donald Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns.”

So here’s what I have decided to do so that I can gradually learn some psalm and canticles by heart. If anyone out there has a better system, I am open to suggestion.

I memorize short sections of text, maybe a psalm verse at a time, so that if I see the first word, I know what’s coming, and then I sing the verse while looking at one of the images in my icon corner. I try to make the image appropriate in some way to the text. I have a print of the Ghent altarpiece in the center of my icon corner, along with the core images of Christ on the Cross, the Risen Christ and Our Lady. Between these and a few other personal Saints and festal icons, I can find connections with many of the themes of salvation history that run through so much of Scripture. This means that I then follow a set path with my eyes, which through repetition becomes a habit as I go through the canticle, and the visual memory helps prompt the linguistic memory.

Once I know the separate sections, I connect them by memorizing two at a time, as a new longer single passage. In practice, this means that I connect the last word of one passage with the first word of the next; if I have remembered each, then the longer one flows. I do often need to look and remind myself, but with repetition, it does come to me. I’m pretty sure that the fact that I sing my prayers helps too.

The next step is to connect these longer passages together until the whole is memorized. This is still a slow process for me, but I am getting there. My goal is to engage the aural, linguistic and visual components of memory in such a way that I can always recite the skeleton of a generic office even if I don’t have any liturgical books or my cell phone, with me. It occurs to me that in the process, it will help my approach to worship by developing my instincts for using all my senses in conjunction with the imagination that connects perceptible realities to those that are imperceptible.

I wonder, have I stumbled onto something which everyone does anyway? I’d love to know how you commit facts to memory.

The U.S. Bishops’ Interventions on the Liturgy at Vatican II

Since the promulgation of Sacrosanctum Concilium, much ink (both real and virtual) has been spilt over what Vatican II said about the liturgy. Considerably less, however, has been used in examining what was said about the liturgy at Vatican II. This is perhaps due to the Acta Synodalia - the record of all the spoken and written interventions made at the Council - being quite difficult to get access to. Unless one has access to an excellent library that has the Acta, or is prepared to shell out quite a bit of money to purchase all 26 volumes, the chances of being able to personally consult them is small. [1] As well as this, the Acta is, as one might expect, almost entirely in Latin, which is an obvious barrier for those who do not know the language well.

The Council Fathers - but what did they all say?

However, there are a few English-language resources out there for those who want to begin to find out what exactly was said at Vatican II by the Council Fathers. [2] One of those is a book edited by Mgr Vincent Yzermans, entitled American Participation in the Second Vatican Council (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1967). Yzermans was a priest of the Diocese of St Cloud who served as both a press advisor and the official representative of Bishop Peter Bartholome during the Council. American Participation is a compilation of the spoken and written interventions made by the American Bishops at Vatican II - or, at least, those he could get access to, for it seems that some bishops were not the best at record-keeping! [3]

Chapter 3 of American Participation will be of special interest to NLM readers, as it is that chapter that collects the interventions of the U.S. Bishops on Sacrosanctum Concilium. A PDF scan of this chapter can be downloaded here!

The interventions certainly make for interesting reading - on some things the U.S. Bishops are in broad agreement (e.g. the use of the vernacular for private recitation of the breviary), on other things there is considerable diversity of thought. Some extracts to whet your appetite:

There are, indeed, many among the clergy and laity who, imbued with historicism, rather than with true pastoral sense, look for great changes without sufficiently considering their usefulness to the faithful. (Francis Cardinal Spellman, 22 Oct 1962)

[T]he psychological and mental dispositions of our contemporary men should be the normative and determining element of any liturgical decree. The difference between modern man and sixteenth-century man is such that there is a strong indication of the need for liturgical reform. (Joseph Cardinal Ritter, 23 Oct 1962)

Recalling both the history of early centuries and contemporary necessities, where is the justification of the opinion which wants to change the venerable language of the sacred liturgy at will? An attack on Latin in the liturgy is indirectly but truly an attack upon the stability of sacred doctrines because the liturgy necessarily involves dogma. (James Cardinal McIntyre, 5 Nov 1962)

The faith of our people is not going to be enhanced by making its practice easy. Spiritual muscles, as well as physical ones, are developed by exercise, not by indulgence. Look about and see where the faith is strong, and you will find a deeply rooted conviction of the need for penance. Conversely, where luxury and ease are cultivated the faith is moribund. The kind of devil that besets our world today can be driven out only by prayers and fasting. (Bishop Russell McVinney, 12 Nov 1962)

NOTES

[1] However, with regard to the Acta, please keep an eye out over the next few weeks for news regarding an exciting project!

[2] For instance, Fr Joseph Komonchak has translated into English some of the preparatory schemas drafted before the Council: the draft De Ecclesia can be found here, four other draft schemas can be found here, and a pretty good essay examining the suggestions (votum) submitted during 1959-1960 by the U.S. Bishops for what the Council should discuss can be found here. Also, though they do not contain any full texts of speeches, it is worth mentioning that the diaries of Yves Cardinal Congar, O.P. and Henri Cardinal de Lubac, S.J. have recently received English translations: Y. Congar, My Journal of the Council (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012); H. de Lubac, Vatican Council Notebooks: Volume One (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015). Diaries and journals are, however, very personal (and often very frank!), so, as interesting as they can be, if one is looking for a more objective account of Vatican II then they are perhaps not the best resources to begin with!

[3] Yzermans recounts that, in reply to his request for copies of spoken and written interventions, Bishops Alexander Zaleski (Lansing), Lambert Hoch (Sioux Falls), Ignatius Strecker (at that time of Springfield-Cape Girardeau) and Floyd Begin (Oakland) said that they had not kept any copies! Indeed, Bishop Begin said that the same was likely true of many other bishops (cf. American Participation, pp. 5-6).

Fr. Stravinskas on: Sociological Effects of Liturgy

Sociological Effects of Liturgy," an address by the Reverend Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., at the “Faith of Our Fathers” conference in Kilkenny (Ireland), 13-15 September 2013.

We hear a great deal today about “culture”: the youth culture, the culture of life, the culture of death, the anti-culture. And so, I would like to begin my reflections by demonstrating the connection between culture and worship. As a die-hard Latin teacher, I want to establish the etymological linkage. The word cultura (culture) comes from the word cultus (cult, as in “worship”). To enter into a language is to enter into the mindset of a people. Thus, one can say that for the ancient Romans, “culture” was rooted in “cult” or worship. We can smirk at the Greeks and Romans of old with their thousand little gods and goddesses inhabiting the Pantheon but, for all that, they still lived with a transcendental horizon. In other words, the individual human being was answerable to a higher and ultimate authority. And within that horizon, those peoples forged impressive cultures. Similarly, within the Christian scheme of things, we find that what many historians have dubbed “The Age of Faith”– the high middle ages – produced a nearly unimaginable outpouring of literature, art, music and architecture – unrivaled to this very moment.

On the other hand, we look at the century to which we have only recently bade adieu and what do we encounter? What many commentators have labeled “the century of blood.” Indeed, more people died in the wars and under the repressive, godless regimes of the twentieth century than in all previous eras combined. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council got it right in asserting that “without the Creator, the creature vanishes” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 36). That should be the object lesson we carry with us through this century and which we imprint on the consciousness of our people, especially the young.

Sociologists of religion remind us that worship always occurs within a context: cultural, political, sociological, religious. Worship forms for the Catholic community underwent a tremendous change in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. The Council itself was a great blessing to the Church, but it took place in a time of unparalleled social upheaval. Not to have lived then is to be almost incapable of appreciating the degree of confusion and uprootedness which characterized the years of Vatican II and, most especially, its immediate aftermath. To many, it appeared that the train of the Church had been derailed, and one of the first victims of that crash was the Sacred Liturgy. If the plan of the Council Fathers had been followed; if unlawful experimentation had not been tolerated; if unwarranted and unwise changes had not been introduced; things would have been different. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo in Sri Lanka and former Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship in Rome, elucidates this: “The careful reading of the conciliar Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, shows that the rash changes introduced to the liturgy later on were never in the minds of the Fathers of the Council.” (1)

Indeed, the life of the Church would not have been so massively disrupted, as so sadly reflected in: the 75% decline in Sunday Mass attendance; the 65% decline among women religious; the loss of approximately 100,000 priests worldwide during the last decade of Pope Paul VI's pontificate; the halving of our Catholic school system in the United States. Social theorists would warn that one cannot tinker with the signs and symbols of the liturgy without affecting the very existence of the Church. Why? Because the Church takes her life from the liturgy; hence, the very title of Pope John Paul II’s final encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia (the Church comes from the Eucharist). It is for this very reason that every pope of the post-conciliar period has endeavored, step by step and brick by brick, to recapture what was imprudently discarded and to discard what was thoughtlessly introduced – but now in a somewhat calmer historical setting, albeit with problems of its own.

The question then surfaces: Whom are we seeking to introduce to a life of worship? I would recommend focusing on the young, if for no other reason than the fact that the elder generation is rather solidly formed (or deformed) and unlikely to change. Saint Paul showed himself to be an exemplary teacher when, before preaching to the population of Athens, he toured their city, endeavoring to learn about their culture. Although he was not totally successful in linking up the Gospel message with the cultural reality he found in Athens, he did zero in on a crucial point of reference in his discussion of the “unknown god” whom they worshiped (cf. Acts 17:23). Cult and culture merged. Following his example, many of us in Catholic education have sought to engage the culture of our students by listening to their music, watching their films, and learning their lingo. Those who have been in the business for thirty or more years will remark that today's youth are quite different from those we met as we embarked on our teaching careers.

I would summarize the picture in these terms: They are, in effect, a tabula rasa – a blank slate, especially from a religious standpoint. Talking to them about Vatican II as though it had happened yesterday (which is often the impression some folks of my generation give) has the same effect as talking to them about Nicea II. The theological battles and liturgical wars of the sixties and seventies are not on their radar screen; which is to say that they don't have the baggage of the “boomers.” They tend to be rather open to traditional approaches to Catholic life and worship, perhaps as a kind of “reaction formation” to what they have experienced of instability in the Church, society-at-large, and their own families.

My anecdotal data is actually carefully detailed in Colleen Carroll's book, The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy. (2) If you have not read this work, you must do so, as it provides invaluable information on who these young people are, how they think and, yes, how they feel.

Permit me to quote extensively from Miss Carroll's findings. She asks:

Why are young adults who have grown up in a society saturated with relativism – which declares that ethical and religious truths vary according to the people who hold them – touting the truth claims of Christianity with such confidence? Why, in a society brimming with competing belief systems and novel spiritual trends, are young adults attracted to the trappings of tradition that so many of their parents and professors have rejected? Is this simply the reaction of a few throwbacks to a bygone era, a few scattered inheritors of a faith they never critically examined? Is it the erratic behavior of young idealists moving through an inevitably finite religious phase? Or are they the heralds of something new? Could these young adults be proof that the demise of America's Judeo-Christian tradition has been greatly exaggerated? (3)

Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft answers thus: “It's a massive turning of the tide.” He goes on: “Even though they know less history or literature or logic” than students ten or twenty years ago, “they're more aware that they've been cheated and they need more. They don't know that what they're craving is the Holy Spirit.” (4)

Miss Carroll explains:

The young adults profiled in this book also differ substantially from their grandparents, though their moral attitude and devotional practices often look surprisingly similar. Most of their grandparents inherited a religious tradition that either insulated them from a culture hostile to their beliefs or ushered them into a society that endorsed their Christian worldview. Today’s young Americans, regardless of their religious formation, have never had the luxury of accepting orthodoxy without critical reflection. The pluralistic culture they live in will not permit it. Nor do most of them want to be religious isolationists confined to spiritual, religious, and cultural ghettos of their own construction. They intuitively accept the religious tolerance that marks a postmodern culture, yet they refuse to compartmentalize their faith or keep their views to themselves. Though they express their values in different ways, most of these young adults are intent on bringing them to bear on the culture they live in and on using their talents and considerable influence to transform that culture. (5)

She then spells out the salient characteristics of this generation over a two-page spread. Again, I would urge you to read her material carefully and even prayerfully. (6)

As I was reading her list, I could you hear echoes of the young I have known and taught, and the descriptor that came to mind was “dynamic orthodoxy.” If even half of her characterizations are accurate, we have great, good reason for hope. It should be mentioned that Carroll’s findings are not limited to Catholicism; in reality, they cross denominational lines. Interestingly, much contemporary research shows that the most striking turns toward tradition can be found within Judaism, where Reform Judaism has lost considerable ground, while Orthodoxy has grown by leaps and bounds, to the amazement of most observers. In this regard, it is worth consulting works like those of D. Michael Lindsay and George Gallup, Jr., with their intriguing titles: Surveying the Religious Landscape and The Gallup Guide: Reality Check for 21st-Century Churches.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Society of St. Hugh of Cluny - Solemn High Mass in New York City

A writeup of the Mass by Fr. Lang of the Oratory and reading by Martin Mosebach will follow. More photos can be found here.

The History of the Mass, Part I

Appended to William Caxton's Englishing of The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints of the Blessed Jacobus of Voragine, Bishop of Genoa, published at Westminster the twentieth day of November, the year of our Lord fourteen hundred and eighty-three, and the first year of the reign of King Richard III.

Here beginneth the noble History of the Exposition of the Mass.

For heart devout to understand what it is to say mass, also to conscrate the body of our Lord, the precious sacrament of the altar, it is to know that the mass may be comprised in four parts principal. The first part dureth from the beginning of the mass unto the offering, the second dureth from the offering to the Pater Noster said, the third part dureth from the Pater Noster unto the perception, and the fourth part dureth from the perception unto the end of the mass. As touching the first part, that is, the beginning of the mass unto the offering, it is to understand that the priest, which is as he that showeth the way of God to the people, ere he revesteth him with the chasuble, he beginneth and saith a psalm that is in the third nocturn of the psalter, the which psalm beginneth: Judica me deus et diseerne, and in the same psalm he asketh four things. The first is that he may be parted from all evil company, the second is that he may be delivered from all evil temptation, the third is that he may be of the Holy Ghost enlumined, and the fourth is that Jesu Christ give himself to be consecrated by him. And to the entent he may the more surely and devoutly consecrate the said sacrament, he confesseth himself generally of all his sins, saying his confiteor, by the which confiteor he showeth four things. First, he showeth himself worthy of redargution or rebuke, secondly, he showeth himself plein of contrition, thirdly, he requireth aid of them that are about him, that he may have remission of his sins, and fourthly, he demandeth of our Lord very absolution.

The priest, after, kisseth the altar, the which kissing signifieth unity and direction in showing how our Lord would unite or join our humanity to his divinity by great love, and take the church for his own spouse, wherefore the holy church may say thus: Quasi sponsam decoravit me corona, et quasi sponsam ornavit me monilibus. That is to say, that our Lord as his proper spouse, hath adorned or clad me with things precious.

For the full text, see here. More to come.

Worth Sharing

Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief of First Things, weighs in on the ongoing battle over liturgical translation in the current issue of that fine journal of religion and culture. He writes:

Thanks to a working group called Vox Clara, headed by George Cardinal Pell of Australia, and to the hard work of a reformed ICEL (International Commission on English in the Liturgy), it seems that Catholics will soon have a new sacramentary with an actual translation of the Latin texts of the Mass rather than the loose and clunky paraphrases that were hastily contrived in the 1960s. The old guard of the liturgical establishment that was responsible for the dumbed-down paraphrase is not happy. Bishop Donald Trautman, who will be chairman of the U.S. bishops conference's committee on liturgy for a little while longer, gave the keynote address at the January meeting in Toronto of the North American Academy of Liturgy. Criticizing the work of Vox Clara and ICEL, he said liturgists must be "prophetic" in defending a liturgy that is "accessible and pastorally aware." I don't know how liturgy can be aware, but Catholics who are aware may be somewhat amused by the warnings of Trautman and others that changes in the rite might alienate some of the faithful. After forty years of eat-your-spinach diktats from the liturgical guild, it seems a little late to be worrying about alienating the faithful. By now everybody is familiar with the quip about the difference between liturgists and terrorists: You can sometimes negotiate with terrorists. Thanks to Vox Clara and ICEL, it seems that at least one war on terrorism is being won.

-- "While We're At It," First Things 171 (March 2007): 61