Stones Crying Out

One of my favorite lines from the Scriptures is found in the Gospel of St. Luke, who recounts an interaction between Jesus and some Pharisees. Jesus processes into Jerusalem fresh from raising Lazarus (Jn 11), both followed and preceded by thousands of excited admirers (Jn 12:17; Mk 11:9), who are cheering "Hosanna," which means something like "God save..." or "Long live...", as in, "Long live the King!" The word hosanna is actually related to the proper name Yeshua, Jesus' name in his mother tongue. Trust me on this one. Now, as people are cheering, "God save the one who comes in the Name of the Lord," a reference to the messiah, the pharisees become perturbed (Mt 21:15; Jn 12:19). The Pharisees ask Jesus to tell the crowds to stop calling him King (Lk 19:39).

Here's what Jesus says to answer them:  I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out, (Lk 19:40).  That's it.  That's one of my favorite lines.  Think about it - even the paving stones under their feet are yearn, bursting forth with the news that God has come to his people, that God has returned to holy Jerusalem, that God is going to reclaim his holy people.  Even the stones!

This idea doesn't originate with Jesus though, except inasmuch as he is God and everything originates with him.  Read the first few verses of Psalm 19:

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
   and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
    and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
   their voice is not heard;

Yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
    and their words to the end of the world.
    In them he has set a tent for the sun,
Which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
    and like a strong man runs its course with joy... (Ps 19:1-5).

Jean Corbon, who is said to have shadow-written the fourth part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which deals with prayer, wrote a book called The Wellspring of Worship.  I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to understand what is the heart of liturgy.  By "liturgy" I am not indicating any migration to an Eastern Rite.  Still less am I getting hippified and refusing to use the word "Mass," which is the correct English-language word designation for what we Catholics are required to attend on Sundays and other obligatory holy days.  Liturgy is a broader term whose translation is often botched as "work of the people."  The Greek term, and its Latin loan word, both meant "public work," which is different.  Works of the people include things like potluck dinners, spontaneous singalongs, and quilting bees.  There are obviously people in the Church who want the Holy Sacrifice to fall into this category and so continue to promote this incorrect translation.  A "public work" is different.  In ancient Greece or Rome, liturgia would have described such things as arenas like the Colosseum, a new sewer system, or a nice fountain.  Modern things like the Washington Monument, Fed-Ex Field, or your local public school serve as modern equivalents.  Then as now, the state built such things, and so did very wealthy, private benefactors.  They were gifts to the people, and very often built by the people, and in those senses were "public works"; but they most certainly were not the brainstorms of people on the street, or for that matter, people in the pew.  So it is with the Mass.  The Mass is a gift to the people and not from the people.  It originates in Jesus Christ's sacrifice of the cross because we need it, and not because he needs it.  And the Mass is one instance of liturgy.

The Church has been entrusted with at least six other liturgies: one for each sacrament.  The different liturgical churches within the Catholic Church each have their own liturgy, their own way of carrying out the seven sacraments.  Liturgy is a sort of scripted, cyclical ritual given by God in order to orient us toward God.  It is liturgy in this sense that Corbon examines in his book.  I will attempt to summarize his central thesis in a single sentence: God has created all of creation to share in his joyous, loving glory, which pulsates throughout creation, drawing all creation back toward God; and God has designed creation specifically to bring as many people as possible back to himself.  He might say that all creation is a sort of living, breathing, God-worshiping organism.  we humans enter into the reorientation of self toward God that is worship by entering into the liturgy that is the universe, particularly the sacramental life of the Church, which Jesus has instituted for that purpose. (OK, I cheated by using a semicolon. It's a big book, with lots of points to make...)

I wish I could paraphrase Corbon better, but I haven't got my copy of his book handy.  I gave it away in a moment of blind affection.  Ah, well.  It's on my Amazon wishlist.  Lol.  I mention all of this now because I came across the YouTube video below on the Anchoress's blog.  If what I wrote above seems kind of abstract, watch the six minute beauty below.  Heck, even if you got what I wrote above, which given my penchant for Ryanese strikes me as a bit unlikely, watch the video.





Do you see what I mean now? EVERYTHING: my car wreck a week or so ago that taught me a little obedience to the divine will, the snow that swamped DC this past weekend and made us rest and stay at home, baptisms and transubstantiations, animals in the zoo, sunny days on mountaintop meadows, all of it... it was all created by God because he loves us and wants to teach us to love Him in return. As we learn to enter into it, to discern his will, act charitably and as good stewards, respond with gratitude, we do in fact draw closer to him. Everything is meant to build this reality into us, and especially the sacraments are meant to do so in a way that nothing else can. Jesus, the Gracious God Made Flesh, became flesh precisely so that grace can operate in fleshly things. He would not have heaven and earth, the spiritual and the material, separated forever. In his nativity, God becomes a native of planet earth so that we can become strangers and exiles here, with a new citizenship in heaven.

It's just amazing what he did that day two thousand years ago in Bethlehem. Creation is still reeling with the ripples of God diving into his own creation, to change us from the inside, to teach us to praise his Father in every circumstance.

Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the LORD.  Hosanna!

Mary, Latreia, Dulia, and Hyperdulia

Responding to a recent post on InsideCatholic, a commenter identified what he believed to be a failure of logic among Catholics and in our doctrine.  He wrote to the extent that Catholics have reserved worship for God not in practice, but merely in definition.  We treat Mary as we do God, but that we call the acts of reverence to her hyperdulia, and to Him, latreia.  He said that we define hyperdulia as whatever we do to honor Mary, and latreia as whatever we do to honor God.  It seems appropriate on the day before a great Marian holy day to consider such things, so I have decided to gussy my response up a bit and reprint it below:

Latreia has a very specific meaning. Latreia is not just "whatever is higher than hyperdulia." It is very clearly, specifically "ministerial service," (see any Greek lexicon) and it refers to the service of the altar - to sacrificial worship.

For Protestants, who have ejected the concept of sacrifice from their acts of worship, one act of reverence and devotion blends with another - prayers, catechesis, song. It is not so among us Catholics, because we have the Eucharist - not merely a memorial, but a re-presentation, a re-manifestation, a re-engagement - of Christ's self-sacrificial oblation. The Eucharistic Sacrifice is the act by which Christ worshiped the Father, and it is the act by which Catholics and the Orthodox worship the Father, because it is the way that he instructed us to do so (Mt 26:26-29; Mk 14:22-25; Lk 22:19-22; 1 Cor 11:23-26). That is latreia, and it is reserved for God the Father alone, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Singing, prayers, preaching - those are nice, but they aren't what we mean by latreia. At the Mass and in the rest of our lives, they build up to the latreia. That's what they are for, but they are not the "source and summit" of our life - rather, they draw us closer to God. That is why we can devote them safely to the saints - because the saints draw us closer to God as well. It is impossible to learn about their lives and to attempt to imitate them without growing closer to God... because the saints are saints precisely because of their closeness with God.

Mary is the greatest saint because she is the closest to God. She was so close to him that she bore him nine months in her womb, and many more in her arms. He surely followed her example as a child, and she followed his as an adult. She restrained him when adolescent exuberance would have launched his ministry too early, and prodded him before it was too late. She followed him around as he preached, and she met him on the Way of the Cross as he died. She alone among women is named as among those present in the Upper Room at Pentecost - surely not at the periphery of the Apostles, but at their center as the one who knew Him best. The Holy Spirit descended upon her to conceive in her the Messiah of Israel, and descended upon her and the Apostles to bring the Messiah out to the world.

Whoever would denigrate such a relationship has either not thought it through. She is not one among many Christians or saints - she is absolutely unique among God's creatures. If we honor our mothers with dulia (devotion), surely something higher is owed the Mother of God.  And that is what is hyperdulia means: higher devotion.

Some Stuff I Bet You Didn't Know About Mass...

In With the Old

Archbishop Raymond Burke is the head of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church's highest court, subject in law only to the Holy Father himself. On last Sunday, Oct 18, 2009, he sang the Tridentine Mass according to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It was the first time the High Tridentine Mass was sung in Latin in St. Peter's for forty years.

In her blog, Mary Ann Kreitzer points out that forty might not be a coincidence. In biblical thought, it is the number signifying penance, conversion, and waiting for God. Forty is the number of days of rain in Noah's day; of days spent sitting in the ark waiting for the world to dry; of years wandered in the desert; of days til Nineveh be overthrown; of days our Lord spent fasting and praying. The thought is hers, and I got the beautiful picture (at right) from her as well.

I will not go nearly so far as to say that the Church has been in exile away from the true Mass, and now we've got it back. That's all bosh. Where the bishop is, there is the Church (according to St. Ignatius of Antioch); when the Pope speaks, Peter has spoken (according to St. Augustine of Hippo). The Church has given us a new liturgy, the Liturgy of 1971 of Paul VI. According to our Holy Father, that is and will remain the ordinary ritual for the Mass in the Latin ("Roman") church.

But I will go this far: I think the Church is waking up. I think we are finally starting to wander out of the desert of our own denseness. I think those who are daily deciding to stick with her come what may, have counted the cost, are counting the cost, and have a better sense of what we are doing. Fewer and fewer remain who do so only because everybody else is doing so. Just a couple generations ago, so many Catholics had memorized answers that they did not understand, felt they mustn't question or probe, and were mostly content not to do so. The faith of those who remain is harder won, and we may yet be made to fight harder still to continue in the race of faith. Sincere seekers are asking questions with an openness to answers, and they are being answered by knowledgeable Christians who are open to questions. I do not dare say that the Church has been chastened, but I think it is clear that we are being chastened. And we are waking up.

Click the picture for thoughts about Rev. Mr. Fernando Saenz' first mass as deacon

We will bring that wakeful alertness with us wherever we go. We will bring those questions, and those answers, to the world. We will bring our understanding with us when we go out, because God is giving us a new heart for Him. And we will understand what God is doing even when we do not understand the language of the liturgy in which He is doing it. From October 6 to 15, while traveling in Italy and Germany, I had occasion to attend Mass twice in English, once in Italian, and twice in German. The German sounded a LOT like English, and phrases here and there had refreshingly similar sounds, but I understood hardly any of it. I know more Italian than German, but the Italian sounded even stranger - singsongy and light. At one English-language Mass the microphones were turned down a bit low, so I missed most of it. "Why not Latin?" I thought, "Just as easy to understand!" The other English-language Mass was beautiful, quiet, with an air densely packed by prayer; that was the Mass in which my newly-ordained friend preached for the first time. Seven or eight of us filled up half the chapel. Several Italians, mostly young and presumably understanding only a little, popped in to take up the empty pews. They didn't know it was the day after Fernando's ordination. They didn't know English. We did not know Italian. But somehow, in that place, praying privately together, publicly as a community of new acquaintances and strangers except for Christ, we knew exactly what we were doing. The Mass is the Mass is the Mass, the same in every language and in every place. We knew exactly what we were doing. We were awake.

Somehow, I sense that the growing urge within the Church for the Tridentine liturgy, even if we experience it only periodically, is a sign that we are coming awake.

A New Conception of Humanity

We shouldn't think that any of the graces given to the Blessed Virgin Mary are weird, or out of place, even if they are singular and just for her. Everything that God has done for the Blessed Virgin in a particular way, He wants to do for us in a general way; everything for her in a miraculous way, for us in a progressive, natural way.

The Immaculate Conception is a perfect example of a grace that we shouldn't find odd. He spared her from the curse of Original Sin and all its effects from the moment of her (immaculate) conception in the womb of her mother, St. Anne. By our baptism he cleanses us of all sin, including original sin, the sin we inherit from our origins, and its effects upon us are loosened for now, and eventually, at the resurrection, obliterated entirely. Mary was granted the particular grace of the Immaculate Conception so that she would be a fitting mother to bear God into the world. We are baptized so to receive God when He comes to us, and by virtue of our baptism, are able to bear Him to others in the world. God gave Mary the grace never to go near death. He gives us daily the grace to walk away from it.

Because of her Immaculate Conception she never needed, nor ever did, taste death. She was a living challenge to sin and death, just by her manner of living and being. As the culmination to a sinless life, she was brought bodily into the realms of light before death yet scarred her. We who, unlike the Virgin of Virgins, are born into the sinfulness of the human family, taste death in our daily life - anger, hatred, mockery, violence, malice, sickness, suffering, warfare - and will finally taste death in its fullness; but not in its finality. By living a life structured by the sacraments and soaked in the Sacred Scriptures, in unity with our Christian brethren, and in as nearly constant prayerful union as we can manage, we ourselves will push back the domain of sin wherever we go, undoing hatred, suffering, and even death. Since the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have a hope that the world just doesn't get, doesn't understand - the hope of resurrection for ourselves. Because of this great hope, we can even freely embrace life's sufferings and so will not be cowed by them into sinning. Death, which does us in, is undone by Christ. This process begins for each human in baptism; it begins for humanity in the Immaculate Conception.

Don't forget that today is a Holy Day of Obligation. Yes, you just went to Mass yesterday. Sweet! We all get to go again, and praise and worship God at the Sacrifice of His Son, today for the great gift He has given us in His Mother.

The End of Days

Today, for the Catholic Church, is the last day of the liturgical year. This evening we begin a new year in Christ, the year of our Lord 2009, with the vigil of the First Sunday of Advent. The introit for the First Sunday of Advent, the first words spoken in the liturgy, are Ad te levavi animam meam, "To Thee I have lifted up my soul," (Ps 25). I hope I won't sound impertinent by saying that the various caretakers of our holy liturgy have, over the millennia, decided well by using verses from this psalm to open the liturgical year.

The liturgical year might be thought of as our life in Christ lived out over the course of a year. The first half of the year celebrates Advent and Christmas, the time in which we remember our Lord God's incarnation and entrance into the world as an honest-to-God human being. Then comes a liturgical pause, known as the Ordinary Time, in which all the regular rules and ordinances of Christian living apply. In this period, the Mass readings focus especially on the basic teachings of our Lord. During Lent, the next phase, we focus on renunciation of the things of the world and interior conversion. Faith, hope, and love, so prominent in the Christian life, crystallize into prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We remember the suffering and death of our Lord during the brief period known as Passiontide that comes at the end of Lent, followed by the Triduum, the three most sacred days of the year, in which the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are made manifest to us again in the liturgy. The explosion of joy at the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the God-man, at the Easter Vigil and the fifty days of Eastertide (to trump the forty days of Lent) is marked by baptisms, bonnets, confirmations, May Day, parish picnics, and the rest. So the first half of the liturgical year concludes. The second half resumes Ordinary Time and its weekly, daily reflection on what it means to live as a follower of Jesus, as one who wishes to follow Him even into eternity.

And it all begins with a psalm, and sung poem inspired by the Holy Spirit, "To Thee I have lifted up my soul." The world moans in exile from Eden, riddled with sin, mourning in death and death's fall-out zone: bickering friends, starving children, despair, frustration, suffering, and all the things that God never desired for us but that we have brought upon ourselves collectively by our collective sin. We lift up our soul to God, like a mother holding a dying child, like our Blessed Mother grief-stricken and holding her murdered Son. Our heart groans and cracks under the weight of the sadness we are expected to bear, our exile from Eden, our slavery in Egypt, our bondage in Babylon, our weeping in this valley of tears. And God, in his unfathomable love and mercy, stoops down to lift us up, to lift us from the dunghill and set us on a firm rock (Ps. 40), to live with us and to love us face to face. In Advent, we reflect upon our sinful condition, we remember what God has done for us, what God is doing for us, what God will do for us. We remember His first coming into the world, about 2000 years ago; and we attend to His daily return in the People of God, in the proclaimed Gospel, in our private prayers, and especially in the Sacraments and in our sufferings handing over to Him. We look forward to His final return in Glory, the Parousia, at which He will fully, finally manifest His Kingdom, His way of doing things, and set everything to rights.

In the Gospel reading for the I Sunday of Advent (Is 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7; Ps 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19; 1 Cor 1:3-9; Mk 13:33-37), our Lord warns us to watch, to pay attention, because we do not know when the End will come and so we must stay ready. Moreover, if we do not pay attention, we will miss Him here and now as He begins and continues His saving work in our life. Emmanuel means "God with us," and He is truly with us, and He is coming. This year, lift up your soul to God and watch to see what He does.

Laetare Sunday (a bit late)

This past Sunday was the fourth of Lent, called Laetare Sunday, named as many Sundays are, for the first word of that Mass, which comes from the opening antiphon:

"Laetare, Ierusalem, et conventum facite, omnes qui diligitis eam."

Or, for the less Latinly inclined,

"Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad because of her, all you who love her."

Normally, as a sign of joy, the dark and somber purple of the priest's vestments is relieved by a giddy pink. It's like the Church lurches forward with excitement and anticipation when She notes that she has rounded the corner and Lent is over half-done. While usually the priest is the only man gutsy enough to wear pink on Laetare Sunday, my sister and neice thought it appropriate that they should as well. How can a little cutie-pie like that NOT make someone smile from ear to ear?

In the Washington, D.C. area, our famed Cherry Blossoms are about to start blooming - first fruits of the spring, as if Nature and Fauna themselves are rejoicing that their King will soon rise from the dead. How wise of Mother Church to give us, her weak little boys and girls, a reprieve from our Lenten disciplines.

But alas, it's Tuesday now, and so we are back into Lent.

Pilgrimage Spot

The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is located in Brookland, a neighborhood in the Northeast quadrant of Washington, D.C. It is also located in my heart. It's a little bit away from anywhere I've ever lived. My home in Rockville is about 35 minutes away - that's the closest, so it's always been a bit of a trip, a mini-pilgrimage if you will, to go there. The Shine has something like 53 chapels devoted to different images of Our Lady as well as its great main chapel and its beautiful and large, yet homely and intimate Crypt Chapel in the basement. It has a whole chapel for hearing confessions, and another for the Blessed Sacrament. It is a wonderful place to go to make a holy hour, preceded by Mass and confession, as I did today.

Sometimes I let the beautiful, emotional Mother of Sorrows chapel draw me in. It's Pieta, which I feel superior to Michaelangelo's (in effect if not technique) is absolutely gripping. A youngish Mary holds Jesus in her lap with his lance wound facing the penitent man at prayer before the altar. She leans over him with her chest heaving and her face plunging forward and upward, toward heaven, but her eyes are closed gently and she refuses to be consoled, because her Child is no more.

Sometimes I drift into the Virgin of Guadalupe chapel. The walls are all done in mosaics, showing the Virgin of Guadalupe flanked by processions of men, women, and children bearing her gifts and homage. Among them are recognizable saints, especially saints from the Americas: St. Juan Diego, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Katherine Drexel, St. Rose of Lima. But there are many more people whose identity is known only to the artist, if even to him. They are the nameless multitudes of Christians drawn into the life of holiness by the beauty of their Lord's mother.

Sometimes I make my way into the Our Lady of Lourdes chapel, which is a walk-in replica of the Grotto of Lourdes. It feels something like a cavern or a basement, and very much reminds me, when I close my eyes and let my heart see, of the Grotto. It is quiet and dark - the sort of place to which Jesus frequently retreated to pray. It never occured to me until this moment that on such nocturnal retreats He may have met His mother, already in prayer, praying for Him and His ministry. Perhaps they shared hopes and worries in those quiet, nearly wordless meetings. Sitting in that chapel, very much like at the Grotto, it is very easy for me to close my eyes, open my heart, and simply feel with Mary, my mother.

At the apse of the great chapel, there is a massive mosaic of our Lord, the Son of Man, returning in glory at the end of all things. He holds his muscular arms aloft like a traffic cop stopping cars. His blond hair is blonder than blond - it dazzles. His blue eyes are fiery and passionate. He has a halo made of flames blazing from his brow. Needless to say, He does not look happy at what He is finding at the end of all things. While few of us love Jesus the Just Judge as much as we love Jesus the Good Shepherd, the mosaic certainly is a reality check about our relationship with he who "will come to judge the living and the dead."

The liturgies at the Shrine are always conducted with the utmost reverence. Sometimes the singing is singable, and other times I, at least, cannot sing along - but then, the singing is beautiful enough that maybe it is better just to listen. The confessors have always been gentle and patient priests, prudent and straightforward, eager to help the penitent (well, in my experience at least) to change his ways. On the whole, each of my trips there (I must have made a hundred over my lifetime) has been spiritually restful.

I highly recommend a trip.

Happy Feast of the Great Mother of God!

Don't forget, today's a Holy Day of Obligation. After last night, you might need to go to confession before communion. Lol.

Daily Dose of the Mystery

I normally attend the 6:30 a.m. daily Mass at St. Martin of Tours, my home parish. If I oversleep that Mass by accident, I can always attend the 8 a.m. daily Mass at Mother Seton parish, around the corner from where I work. Today I slipped out of my office for a few minutes to attend that one because an early conference call precluded going to St. Martin. Of course, if I lived closer to Mother Seton, its 6:30 a.m. daily Mass would work too. In addition to passing St. Martin on the way to work, I pass St. Rose of Lima parish. Its 8:45 a.m. Mass is a bit later than I prefer, because I like to be out of the office by 4:30 or 5 p.m. at the latest.

Going to St. Martin has the added advantage that the priests there hear confessions after almost every weekday Mass. Only when funerals cut the schedule too close are confessions omitted. At Mother Seton confessions are heard not only at the customary Saturday afternoon times, but also Wednesday evenings. That can be handy if I am leaving work late, or after dinner, and I have a need or desire to go.

What's my point with all this babble about scheduling? Well, it's just that I am very grateful. I know in many places it is much harder to get to daily Mass, and even scheduling confession can be prohibitively difficult. I am very grateful to God and to the priests at St. Martin of Tours and Mother Seton parishes, and the other parishes in the area. These things, these sacraments, are absolutely indispensible for the steady progress in natural and supernatural virtues that is supposed to mark the Christian life. Our priests sit long hours in the box, awake earlier than otherwise necessary, and hop in the car at all hours of the night to make sure that their faithful have access to the sacraments. Their labor of love is a tremendous service to us all.

Please God, let us not forget to thank our priests for their work when they finish absolving us, when they communicate us, when they visit us. Reverend fathers, may God bless you for it.

Love of Liturgy and Liturgy of Love

Many people had been waiting, with either great hope or great anxiety, the document that was finally issued by the Holy Father last Saturday. Summorum Pontificum greatly relaxed, effective September 14, the restrictions that have for some time been in place on the use of the Tridentine liturgy. The Tridentine liturgy is often mistakenly refered to as the Latin Mass, but that is a misnomer. The New Order of the Mass (called the Mass of Paul VI) was also written in Latin, as most international church documents are. In 1963 the Second Vatican Council had given permission for certain parts of the Mass to be translated into the spoken language of the local congregation. Directives issued together with and after the two revisions of the Mass of Paul VI (in 1969 and 1971) expanded that permission. Those directives were carried out with respect to the Mass of Paul VI, but not with respect to the Tridentine Mass since it had either fallen out of use or was supressed.

In their more notable features, the Tridentine Mass and the Mass of Paul VI are not necessarily very different at all. The Tridentine Mass must be conducted in Latin; the New Order can be conducted in vernacular languages, but could always be conducted in Latin by any priest. The Tridentine Mass is generally conducted with the priest at the head of the people, facing the altar of God together with them. Yet, it need not be so - in St. Peter's Basilica itself, right in the heart of Catholicism, the Tridentine Mass was conducted with the priest facing the people because of architectural concerns. The New Order is generally conducted with the priest facing the people, usually out of pastoral concerns. Nonetheless a priest has always been permitted to conduct it facing the altar, particularly if architectural concerns require. Most importantly, both the Tridentine and the New Order contain the same basic actions, in the same basic order. The Word of God is proclaimed, and the Creed recited as a response of faith. Bread and wine are brought to the altar, where the priest by the power of the Holy Spirit transubstantiates them into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. In this event, the One Sacrifice of Calvary is made manifest anew, and the priest and people receive communion in that Sacrifice.

The formal differences between Tridentine Mass and the Mass of Paul VI are mostly matters of overall style. The Tridentine Mass tends toward the elegant flourish, whereas the Mass of Paul VI tends toward "noble simplicity." Prayers are sometimes said in different places, or even different numbers of times, or minor ones may be omitted, and so on.

It is a beautiful thing that there are so many people in the Church anxious to celebrate the Tridentine liturgy again. It is for us a symbol of reverence, prayerfulness, and transcendence. Many times we witness sloppiness or laziness at celebrations of the New Order of the Mass. It can be easy to forget that there were many occasions of such abuse at Mass before 1963, too. My great hope is that when mainstream Catholics walk into church one day and unexpectedly bump into a Tridentine liturgy, they will have an understanding for what is going on because of their experience with the vernacular liturgy. When they return to their more accustomed vernacular liturgy, it can be hoped that they will appreciate it more, too: its depth and mystery, often overlooked because of the New Mass's easy approachability. These two liturgies are really only two usages of, ways of doing, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We can hope that with this understanding the Catholic Church, so full of every sort of diversity, will be enriched in a yet fuller way. The liturgy, Christ's saving work in our midst, is the undivided source of our love and unity with each other as baptized Christians. God forbid that having two liturgical usages at our disposal to celebrate the One Sacrifice of Jesus Christ should become a source of division.