Tag: Customs

Missing Mass on Sunday

An oft repeated conversation:
“Father, I didn’t receive communion today because I couldn’t go to confession.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been home sick for a couple of weeks.”
“Then, it’s not your fault. You don’t have to go to confession. You can receive communion.”
“But, Father, it’s a mortal sin!”
Here’s a Corona-virus-pandemic version of the conversation:
“Father, I haven’t been very good. I didn’t go to Mass the past two Sundays.”
“Why?”
“There was no Mass to go to.”
“Then, it’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know, but I feel bad.”
It’s natural to “feel bad” about missing Mass — it’s a defining practice of a “practicing Catholic”, and it’s a source of strength, consolation, and grace for the week ahead.
Some people like to go to Mass more frequently, even every day. Some people like to go to Mass less frequently, perhaps only on special days like Christmas Eve, Ash Wednesday, and Easter Sunday.
The practical decision about suspending large group assemblies these days, even Masses, is understandable and makes sense — even though it doesn’t feel right at all, and I miss Mass.
Okay, wait a minute. It’s upsetting. I don’t like it. Why do I have to “grin and bear it”?
You don’t!
How about some possible alternatives?
Well, for instance, in the first great document of Vatican Council II, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy there was a very interesting and challenging statement:

. . . Christ is always present in his church, especially in liturgical celebrations. He is

present in the sacrifice of the Mass both in the person of his minister, “the same now offering, through the ministry of priests, who formerly offered himself on cross,” and most of all in the eucharistic species. By his power he is present in the sacraments so that when anybody baptizes it is really Christ himself who baptizes. He is present in his word since it is he himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the church. Lastly, he is present when the church prays and sings, for he has promised “where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them.” (Mt 18:20).

Read it again, carefully, with this question in mind: How much of this is possible for me, at home?
Anybody can be “in communion” with Christ by thoughtfully, reflectively, and prayerfully reading his word — whether the scriptural readings for the Sunday or other parts of the Gospels or Bible.
Anybody living with another or others can be consoled by recalling that when two or more are gathered together in Christ’s name, he is there in the midst of them.
Also, no priest is needed — the head of the household or any other can lead in readings, song, or prayer.
Don’t forget, faith is usually born in the family and nourished by the example of other believers, even just a few.
In his commandments to the Jewish people, God said to keep holy the seventh day — but it didn’t involve going to temple or synagogue to do it!

29 March 2020

(Available in
Spanish translation)

Dreaming the Impossible Dream

The spirit of the great sixteenth century Spanish novel, El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, was beautifully captured by a song in the Broadway musical based on it, “To dream the impossible dream.”
Impossible dream is a good description of an ideal. A dictionary definition of an ideal is “an ultimate object or aim of an endeavor, especially one of high or noble character.”
Ideals are abstractions. An ideal is “the act of considering something as a general quality or characteristic, apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances.”
An attractive ideal is also a “carrot on the stick”—the metaphor refers to a cart driver dangling a carrot in front of a mule or donkey to induce and encourage it to move forward.
One of the great ideals that began to profoundly influence the development of Christianity, especially after it became an imperial state religion, was that of totally renouncing the world, the flawed and corrupt world, to live a life of extreme following of Christ.
Once the era of the heroism of the martyrs with their willingness to suffer and die was over, the new heroism that captured the Christian imagination was to choose to tame the body by radical austerity and solitude, to seek an imagined angelic purity of spirit.
The ordinary believers esteemed these amazing monks, sought their counsel, and aspired to somehow introduce some limited moderated elements of their spiritual discipline into daily life, especially prayer, fasting, and sexual continence.
Even if the extremism of these “quixotic” ultra-austere monks could not be fully imitated, this angelic ideal took firm root in Eastern Christianity and gradually spread throughout the whole church.

The ideal life-style of the clergy had been proposed by Saint Paul in his first letter to Timothy (3:2-13):

. . . a bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children under control with perfect dignity . . .
Similarly, deacons must be dignified, not deceitful, not addicted to drink, not greedy for sordid gain, holding fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience . . . Deacons may be married only once and must manage their children and their households well . . .

The growing esteem for the monks’ ideals and life-style began to change the ideals of clergy life. Many bishops chose total abstinence and an austere life-style. Their example, in effect, began to be a reproach to others, even those living good and holy lives according to the counsels of Paul.
The traditions of the Eastern churches even today reflect this. Bishops must be selected from among monks or lesser clergy who live a monastic life style: however priests and deacons may be drawn from the married or celibate.
The radical, extreme ideals of the desert fathers and the Eastern monks are impossible dreams in that, except for a special grace of God, they are not humanly entirely attainable—but some still inspire, induce, and encourage us.


3 November 2019

Lingering Manichaeism

Manichaeism was a major religion that emerged in the third century. Condemned by the early Church as a heresy, it was founded by the visionary Mani in the Iranian Empire. It thrived between the third and seventh centuries, spreading east to China and west to the Roman Empire.
Manichaeism taught a dualistic cosmology, a primeval struggle between a good, spiritual kingdom of light and an evil, material kingdom of darkness.
This included a dual attitude to sexuality: It was a mighty, powerful drive that first caused the kingdom of darkness to spread; it also could be totally transcended and banished forever from the self.
Two classes existed among the followers of Mani: The Elect totally rejected sexual desire and dietary indulgence, leading ultra-abstemious lives. The majority, the Auditors, were married men and women who idealized the life-style of the Elect and who at least fasted and observed sexual abstinence for fifty days in the year.
Some of these ideals and attitudes existed in early Christian traditions. Eusebius wrote:

Two ways of life were thus given by the Lord to his Church. The one is above nature, and beyond common human living; it admits not marriage, child-bearing, property nor the possession of wealth. . . . Like some celestial beings, these gaze down upon human life, performing the duty of a priesthood to Almighty God for the whole race. . . .
And the more humble, more human way prompts men to join in pure nuptials, and to produce children, to undertake government, to give orders to soldiers fighting for the right; it allows them to have minds for farming, for trade and for the other more secular interests as well as for religion.

Even earlier, similar reflections about a dual aspect to the life of human beings were elaborated by Plato. The distinction between body and soul, between the material and spiritual, between the lower and higher runs all through Greek thought.
Its influence can be seen in the writings of Saint Paul, when he sometimes sounds more like the educated citizen of the empire than the rabbinic scholar.
In any case, by the fourth century there was a strong ideal of extreme asceticism increasingly spreading through the Christian world. Especially in the East, and Egypt in particular, there was a certain “fleeing the world” with the growing popularity of monasticism.
Individuals in the style of the famous Anthony, divesting themselves of the encumbrances and temptations of the city, embraced solitary life in the nearby desert.
For them, the demands of the spirit required harsh treatment of the body—extreme fasting and total sexual abstinence.
Their spiritual prowess became legendary; they were supported and sought out as gurus by the lesser mortals who may have shared their values but who could never imitate their example except occasionally.
As centuries passed, the popularity of desert asceticism waned, monasticism gradually transformed into cloistered religious community life, and religious communities began to be organized to provide charitable and religious services.
But Platonic, Manichaean, monastic, and religious community ideals of sexual renunciation still influence Western culture, popular religiosity, and church discipline.


27 October 2019

Keeping the Sexth Commandment

Growing up, I didn’t go to Catholic school, but I did get religious instruction once a week when we left school early to go to the local parish.
The religious instruction followed the Baltimore Catechism with its three categories: the creed, the commandments, and the sacraments and prayer. The methodology was mostly memorization of questions and answers.
The ones about the sixth commandment didn’t seem to be especially important until puberty hit me—then they became almost terrifying, since some of what they described seemed to be happening to me whether I choose it or not.
Here are those questions and answers:

Q. What is the sixth commandment of God? A. The sixth commandment of God is: Thou shalt not commit adultery. (Exodus 20:14)
Q. What are we commanded by the sixth commandment? A. By the sixth commandment we are commanded to be pure and modest in our behavior. I exhort you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God. (Romans 12:1)
Q. What does the sixth commandment forbid? A. The sixth commandment forbids all impurity and immodesty in words, looks, and actions, whether alone or with others. But immorality and every uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as becomes saints. (Ephesians 5:3)
Q. What are the chief dangers to the virtue of chastity? A. The chief dangers to the virtue of chastity are: idleness, sinful curiosity, bad companions, drinking, immodest dress, and indecent books, plays, and motion pictures.

Q, What are the chief means of preserving the virtue of chastity? A. The chief means of preserving the virtue of chastity are to avoid carefully all unnecessary dangers, to seek God’s help through prayer, frequent confession, Holy Communion, and assistance at Holy Mass, and to have a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Be sober, be watchful! For your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking someone to devour. (I Peter 5:8)

Adultery refers to sexual acts between a married person and someone who is not that person’s spouse.
The wrongness of it would seem to be primarily that it is a violation of the marriage covenant, the breaking of a vow. Once upon a time it could have been be construed as a violation of a husband’s property rights.
However, it literally is not about impurity and immodesty in words, looks, and actions nor is it an exhortation to the virtue of chastity. The sixth commandment is not the “sexth” commandment.
Where did all that come from? It is rooted in a great variety of cultural mores and historical traditions, even theologies, which sometimes have been “sanctified” in the sense of being associated with divine revelation and the preaching of the gospel.
God made us as we are. “In him we live and move and have our being.” We’re not composite persons with a better, higher nature (the soul) somehow imprisoned in worse, lower nature (the body). Each of us is a work of God’s design—and, when God looks upon his creation, he finds it good!


11 August 2019

Accentuate the Positive

When I was a kid they told me that “Eskimos” greet each other by rubbing noses. How peculiar, I thought, why don’t they shake hands?
Older, but no wiser, I learned that American “Indians” greet each other by holding up one hand, palm out, saying “How.” How peculiar, I thought, why don’t they shake hands?
Much later, I came to know that Japanese greet each other by bowing one to the other, that French men (and Arabs) kiss one another on both cheeks and that in India hands are joined in front, as though in prayer, with a slight inclination of the head by way of saying hello.
How peculiar, I then thought, that I was taught to clasp right hands and jerkily move them up and down once or twice by way of greeting — an old tradition that showed that I held no weapon!
Naturally, in my youthful, blissful ignorance, I never questioned greeting the Lord in church by genuflecting on one knee — traditional Western court style. But it certainly seemed odd that in Byzantine churches one reverenced the Lord by bowing so low as to touch the floor — traditional Eastern court style.
And, an altar server kissing hats and hands, rings and books was the most normal thing in the world — my world, that is!
The first moral of these little examples is don’t misunderstand and be put off by superficial, cultural differences. There are limitless different ways of expressing the same good intentions and the same good will.
Another, positive moral of the examples is the importance of respect for cultural differences and of recognition and understanding of the good intentions and the good will that underlies them.

I was deeply struck and deeply moved by the 13 October 2007 open letter to the heads and leaders of Christian churches by 138 Muslim scholars, jurists and religious leaders.
Painfully aware of the increasing and increasingly deadly misunderstandings between Muslims and Christians, they explained that the most important words we have from the prophet Muhammad are consonant with those from Moses and Jesus.
Notwithstanding differences among Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Arabic — and in spite of the stylistic differences of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim holy books — there is a substantial core to their teachings that is the same.
Since God is one, it should be so.
If the one God sends different messengers to different people in different times and different places, then the messages cannot contradict each other. If it seems so, the fault lies with us. It must be due to our human failings, prejudices, misinterpretations, and misunderstandings.
Are there real and substantial differences in belief among Jews, Christians, and Muslim? Of a certainty. But as our Muslim brothers and sisters affirm, there are fundamental, real, and substantial commonalities, too.
When Jesus once was asked by a teacher of the law of Moses what was the greatest commandment of the law, he named two: Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. Jews believe it. Christians believe it. Muslims believe it, too.


(Published as “Hello” in
one, 34:1, January 2008)

Pearls versus Oysters

If I were an oyster, I think I’d take a pretty dim view of pearls. After all, what makes a pearl? Usually it’s the result of some foreign and perhaps irritating particle getting lodged inside the protective shell of the living oyster.
Since the oyster can’t get away from or get rid of the foreign particle, it does its best to deal with it — the oyster secretes and coats it with the same nacre that lines and smooths the inside of its shell.
The result is an encapsulated particle in the form of a glistening sphere — a pearl. Alas, poor oyster, for the pearl is worth more to most people than the creature that brought it into being. The pearl is ripped from the living flesh in which it is nested and the oyster is cast aside to die.
It’s an odd inversion of values. Since without oysters there can be no pearls, why should the pearl be worth so much more than the oyster?
In some ways, living faith communities are like the oyster. They are confronted with disturbing foreign customs or secular traditions that somehow find their way into the fabric of their daily life.
If it’s not possible to get rid of them, living societies do their best to accommodate and incorporate them, suitably modified and rendered harmless.
Curiously, some of the things and customs most associated with the identity of a particular church or religious community often are the results of such accommodations. Further, these “pearls” are sometimes inordinately esteemed, valued and defended.
For example, appropriate religious clothing. Increasingly, Muslim women are wearing head scarves or veils that had their origin in some ancient Middle Eastern customs. They are becoming a controversial badge of religious identity.

But, how much do scarves and veils ultimately matter? With respect, the faith and devotion of the person is more than important than the clothing.
Catholics have experienced similar situations. A couple of generations ago it was unthinkable that a woman would come to church with her head uncovered; now the custom barely exists.
The founders of many religious congregations wanted their members to live simply and modestly, so they made their uniform the ordinary clothing of the poor of their day. What would they think of the post-Vatican II controversies about habits or of a religious generation more concerned about dress than mission?
Is it vital that Western prelates wear the Roman imperial purple, now the sign of the papal household? Is not the Byzantine Liturgy equally efficacious, if its prelates do not wear imperial-style crowns?
Whether the congregation prays barefoot or shod, covered or uncovered, men and women together or apart, prayer is still prayer.
Orthodoxy survived a time without its icons. Western Catholicism can manage without Latin high Masses. Protestants have grown beyond “only Scripture.” These are all precious pearls of our various histories and traditions — but the living church is greater than them all.
We dispute customs and traditions prompted by different times and places. But, the most important thing is the living, common faith that produced them.
The pearl may be of great price, but the oyster is priceless.


(Published as “Priceless Oysters” in
one, 33:2, March 2007)

Conversion or Growth?

Conversion [from the Latin conversio, from the verb convertere, from com – thoroughly + vertere to turn] 1. The act of converting, or being converted in substance, condition, form, function, etc. 2. A change in which one comes to adopt and uphold new opinions and beliefs; especially in matters of religion, a spiritual turning to righteousness and faith.

Let me come right out and say it, I don’t like using this word for religious matters at all. I don’t like talking about “converts” and “converting” and “conversion.”
Somehow it suggests a kind of betrayal — turning away from what one held before, turning one’s back on all that was past as though it had no value at all.
In the human quest for meaning, for the transcendental, for God, as a general rule I don’t think we’re meant to switch sides like a voter who changes party affiliation or a football fan who decides to root for a new team.
I do think we’re meant to build on the foundations of our lives — to grow from where we were first planted — to mature and develop, integrating new insights — to make occasional corrections to ensure we are on course to our final destination.
Now, this doesn’t mean someone should never make a radical, complete change. It may be that the course and direction of one’s life is profoundly flawed or that a person is hungry for a new identity and community. But, it shouldn’t always need to come to this.
On the other hand, the way the world is, we need to put people in one category or another. For example, as a Christian, could I try to integrate all I may find insightful, spiritually enriching, or meaningful in Islam into my life, remaining a disciple of Jesus?

Privately, it may be possible. But, publicly what would it mean? Would fellow Christians accept my following some Muslim practices? Would Muslims allow me to share any of their tradition without renouncing much of my Christian heritage? Is there any room for a Christian Muslim or Muslim Christian?
Suppose I’m a Jew looking at the teaching of Jesus and attracted to it. Is there any way for me to integrate it into my life, remaining a Jew by identity and a member of a Jewish community? Privately, it may be possible. But, publicly it would be a kind of consorting with a historical enemy.
Some try it, for example, Jews for Jesus. But, how do you embrace Jesus without replacing all the customs and practices of Judaism with the foreign customs and practices of one of the Christian churches?
Am I out to “convert” anybody? A long time ago, unhesitatingly, I would have said yes. Now, I realize it’s more complicated
Am I out to share whatever good that has been given to me or that I have found, by the grace of God? Of course. Am I eager to grow in holy wisdom and help anyone and everyone else to do the same? Of course. Do I want others to switch sides, adopt a new culture, cheer a new leader, leave behind their past, forget their roots and be seen as a traitor to those left behind? No, I don’t want that.
What is the answer? I don’t know.
O God, if there is to be any “conversion” in my interacting with your other children, please make it my turning away from all that pulls me away from you and correcting the course of my life so that it brings me to you.


(Published as “Conversion” in
one, 32:1, January 2006)