Vox Nova

27 Responses to “Another Post on Catholicism and Secular Celebrations”

1. david says:

   July 5, 2009 at 8:40 pm

   5 And the devil led him into a high mountain, and shewed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time:

   6 And he said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them: for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will I give them.

   7 If thou, therefore, wilt adore before me, all shall be thine.

   8 And Jesus answering, said to him: *It is written: Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
2. Andy says:

   July 5, 2009 at 9:37 pm

   I agree here, MM.

   I’m the music director at my parish and subbing at another local church. At the “other” local church this morning, I had an individual corner me after Mass and tell me I “had the wrong recessional hymn.”

   Puzzled, I asked what he meant. Did I accidentally put the wrong number on the board? He replied, “What should you do for the last song on Independence Day weekend?” (Implying that we should have had a patriotic song.)

   I responded, “I don’t know about Independence Day, but on the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, we have a song of praise at the end.”
3. Kurt says:

   July 5, 2009 at 9:49 pm

   My question would be what secular rituals are we “rushing to embrace?”

   It seems like we have a few optional customs of long standing, nothing more.

   I;m much more concerned about the lack of patriotism of teh Catholic Right which seems to have at times contempt for the Constitutional government and the democratic process, not to mention an unchristian hatered for the head of state.
4. Morning's Minion says:

   July 5, 2009 at 9:50 pm

   Andy — that makes sense. Priest friends have told me more than once that people demand these kind of “patriotic hymns”, and will become quite vehement in their demands.
5. jh says:

   July 5, 2009 at 9:57 pm

   “But what have we lost? We have lost a life that revolves around the faith, around the liturgy. And we have replaced it with the wholesale embrace of the secular liturgy – in the United States, this includes “feasts’ like July 4 and Thanksgiving. I am not calling for a total withdrawal from secular society and a refusal to recognize these secular rituals. But must we as Catholics rush to embrace them so willingly, to even incorporate them in the liturgy? We once had something a lot better”

   well there could always be both!!! In fact things worked quite well until a few just decades ago. Then after Vatican II it seems in reality many people pushed a lot of th Liturgical stuff aside. Including the Feast Days of important Saints and other observances. It all occured from within for the most part.

   Great Traditional Days commerated in the Catholic Church have been taking a beating. I am convinced that is one reason why have the Feast of Corpus Christi on a Sunday here in the USA. Because who would show up on the Thursday?

   Hopefully we can get that back. July is the Month of the precious blood and Pope Benedict talked about today. How many Catholics under 40 are even aware of this here in the United States if we took a poll. I am afraid to ask.

   Of course even secular holidays have taken a beating in my short lifetime. Observances like Columbus Day and even Memorial and Labor day don’t have the same significane.

   Perhaps the problem is we are not a culture that observes things anymore
6. jh says:

   July 5, 2009 at 10:00 pm

   “I;m much more concerned about the lack of patriotism of teh Catholic Right which seems to have at times contempt for the Constitutional government and the democratic process, not to mention an unchristian hatered for the head of state.”

   What Catholic Right is this?

   I suspect most of the Catholic Right was not wearing ashes yeserday. Just like the Catholic left was not doing it during the Bush years

   THe 4th is a pretty good example of for the most part everyone putting things aside and just celebrating with each other
7. digbydolben says:

   July 6, 2009 at 1:59 am

   MM, Eamon Duffy has a new book out about Mary Tudor, her persecutions of the “Protestant martyr” and her great collaborator in that work, the reformist Edmund Cardinal de la Pole. Here are some reviews:

   http://www.thetablet.co.uk/review/447

   http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/f0000418.shtml

   http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/3702258/cardinal-values.thtml

   The thesis of the book seems to be that the “Marian reforms” almost succeeded because the common people of England—still viscerally Catholic—were in FAVOUR of putting radical Protestantism back in its box, and the intellectual power-houses of the Protestant Reformation were NOT caught and “martyred,” but fled to the continent or recanted, leaving the apostates who were poor to bear the brunt of the Queen’s persecutions. He also argues that the cruelty was essentially hers, and that her husband, the noble and much-defamed (by Whig and Victorian Protestant historians like Froude) Philip of Spain did everything he could (including saving Elizabeth Tudor’s life) to moderate her vindictiveness.

   I intend to purchase it as my only book purchase on Charing Cross Lane when I’m in London at the end of this month. I entitled my livejournal entry about the book “Not Bloody Enough of Bloody Mary,” so you know where my sympathies lie!
8. ron chandonia says:

   July 6, 2009 at 6:17 am

   Exactly what part of “America the Beautiful” makes it so inappropriate as the closing song in the liturgy for this past weekend? No “bombs bursting in air” in that one, as far as I know.
9. Liam says:

   July 6, 2009 at 7:34 am

   JH

   Corpus Christi was celebrated on Sunday by indult in the US long before Vatican II, because the US was not a culturally Catholic country that had a tradition of a public holiday on Thursday to permit Eucharistic processions, which were easier to accommodate in the era of blue laws on Sunday.

   Digby: How does Duffy address the role of Pope Paul IV in what happened during Mary’s reign? (Paul IV distrusted (that’s to put it politely) Pole and treated Philip of Spain as something of an enemy.)
10. digbydolben says:

    July 6, 2009 at 9:00 am

    Liam, I know about Paul IV Caraffa’s dislike of Spaniards, and I know that he wanted to lock Pole up as a “heretic” at one point, but I haven’t read the book yet, so I don’t know what that pope thought about what was going on in England.
11. Morning's Minion says:

    July 6, 2009 at 9:53 am

    Sure, there are no seriously offending lyrics in America the Beautiful. But it was only introduced into the liturgy to coincide with July 4. I’m sorry, yesterday was the 14th Sunday of ordinary time, and nothing else.
12. Michael Denton says:

    July 6, 2009 at 10:14 am

    MM:

    I think you’re spot on with this. The question is how do we regain a sense of the liturgical calendar really impacting our lives while trying to live among the industrialized calendar? Do you have any recommendations other than not singing America the Beautiful and other songs which have no business in the liturgy?
13. jh says:

    July 6, 2009 at 12:05 pm

    “Sure, there are no seriously offending lyrics in America the Beautiful. But it was only introduced into the liturgy to coincide with July 4. I’m sorry, yesterday was the 14th Sunday of ordinary time, and nothing else.”

    It is appropriate to recognize4 events like the 4th.

    TO be honest if a Catholic and their family got their butt up from all the celebrations and came ot Mass a little accomdation might be in order
14. Andy says:

    July 6, 2009 at 12:17 pm

    “It is appropriate to recognize events like the 4th.”

    Yes, it is appropriate to recognize those events at the proper time and place. There is a specific Mass for Independence Day, but it is obviously passed over when it falls on the weekend.

    Only Solemnities and Feasts of the Lord trump Sundays in Ordinary Time (with the rare exception of when All Souls falls on a Sunday, like last year). If all those other saints get shunted to the side for the Lord’s Day, our fireworks can take a backseat for an hour, too.
15. Morning's Minion says:

    July 6, 2009 at 12:45 pm

    I’m looking forward to Duffy’s book on Queen Mary.
16. Morning's Minion says:

    July 6, 2009 at 12:48 pm

    Michael: I think a starting point would be our episcopal leaders trying to encourage the faithful to think more liturgically, to reinvigorate the cult of the saints. Sadly, as some have noted, they’ve been moving in the other direction. But is it realistic to expect fuller liturgical participation when people are working around the clock to feed their families?
17. Joshua B says:

    July 6, 2009 at 1:10 pm

    Good post MM.

    I agree 100%. Good points Andy.
18. Michael Denton says:

    July 6, 2009 at 1:17 pm

    MM:

    Well, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. I can think of a few things (not move Holy days of obligation to Sundays, encourage parents to celebrate the feast day of their child’s namesake, encourage Sunday as a day of rest and a feast day, encourage more Mass attendance during the week by making sure the Masses are at times for people working) but that seems like a small step but it could be a first step. Is there anything else that you can think of to move towards a more liturgical life for Catholics?
19. Kevin says:

    July 6, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    I realize this is not possible in many parishes because of the lack of priests, but the typical single daily mass at 8:00 AM or 9:00 AM does not help 90% of the faithful in the parish. How about a 6:00 AM, noon or 6:00 PM mass daily mass? In parishes that do have this(I travel a lot), these masses are packed.
20. Liam says:

    July 6, 2009 at 3:33 pm

    Noon is unlikely in the increasing proportion of parishes with a single priest. Why? Because of funerals and committals (which will get more frequent as Baby Boomers are reaped).
21. Michael Denton says:

    July 6, 2009 at 3:37 pm

    Kevin:

    Exactly. I have work at 8:30, so there’s no way to do a 8 am or 9 am mass. I could try a 7:30 mass, but it’s so far from my work that with traffic it’d get to work on time about 50% of the time. There are no post 5:00 masses until LSU starts back again, when the campus church has 6 pm mass again.
22. Kurt says:

    July 6, 2009 at 8:58 pm

    Vespers and Morning Prayer with deacons or lay leaders presiding.
23. Joshua B says:

    July 6, 2009 at 10:47 pm

    Vespers is a great idea! I think we could get the Pope behind that idea!
24. Kurt says:

    July 7, 2009 at 8:06 am

    Joshua,

    Yes it is a great idea; no, we don’t need to get the Pope behind the idea. That has been the problem — waiting for some top down decree. We need to get the lay faithful behind the idea — start with the people not the prelates.
25. DarwinCatholic says:

    July 7, 2009 at 8:35 am

    The existing documents on the Liturgy of the Hours strongly recommend group prayer in a parish setting — led either by laity or clergy/religious. The desire for greater lay participation in the Hours is also discussed in Vatican II.

    We got a group off the ground in our parish a couple years ago to say Vespers two nights a week in English and one night a week in Spanish. It’s doable, and it’s got a loyal following of a half dozen people or so, but it’s hard to build large amounts of interest in going down to the parish for something that only takes about fifteen minutes in the slot right after work.
26. Tom says:

    July 7, 2009 at 9:15 am

    I think a starting point would be our episcopal leaders trying to encourage the faithful to think more liturgically, to reinvigorate the cult of the saints.

    I was with you, Morning’s Minion, until this.

    Why is the starting point someone else doing something?

    Let the starting point be me praying the Liturgy of the Hours today. Or fasting on July 21, St. Mary Magdalene’s Eve. Or someone else fasting on August 5.

    As Kurt says, “Start with the people.” Start with us.
27. awakaman says:

    July 7, 2009 at 2:43 pm

    1. I agree that our Bishops are also to blame for this in that they constantly move holy days of obligation to Sundays.

    2. You might want to read Herbert Gutmans’ “Work, Culture and Society in Industrializing America 1815-1919″ http://journeytohistory.com/History1B/Articles/Work_Culture_Society.pdf

    He addresses this need by industry to break every new wave of immigrants of their bad religous habits.

    “Slavic and Italian immigrants carried with them to industrial America subcultures quite different from that of village Jews, but their work habits were just as alien to the modern factory. Rudolph Vecoli had reconstructed Chicago’s South Italian community to show that adult male seasonal construction gangs as
    contrasted to factory labor were one of many traditional customs adapted to the new environment, and in her study of South Italian peasant immigrants Phyllis H. Williams found among them men who never adjusted to factory labor. After “years” of “excellent” factory work, some “began . . . to have minor accidents” and others “suddenly give up and are found in their homes complaining of a
    vague indisposition with no apparent physical basis.” Such labor worried early twentieth-century efficiency experts, and so did Slavic festivals, church holidays,
    and “prolonged merriment.” “Man,” Adam Smith wisely observed, “is, of all sorts of luggage, the most difficult to be transported.” That was just as true for these Slavic immigrants as for the early nineteenth-century native American factory workers. A Polish wedding in a Pennsylvania mining or mill town lasted between three and five days. Greek and Roman Catholics shared the same jobs but had different holy days, “an annoyance to many employers.” The Greek Church had “more than eighty festivals in the year,” and “the Slav religiously observes the days on which the saints are commemorated and invariably takes a holiday.” . .”