Mutual Enrichment Dubium: Pentecost Octave

In the cover letter to Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI expressed hope for a "mutual enrichment" of the newly-named Ordinary and Extraordinary forms of the Roman rite. How such a thing plays out will continue to be a matter of discernment and debate, a work of local custom and of the sensus fidelium.

In that spirit, here's a practical question. I'm curious to see what people think.

When I first acquainted myself with the older form of the liturgy, I became sensitized, like many, to the absence of the Pentecost Octave in the reformed calendar. Indeed, the relationship of Pentecost to the whole of the liturgy between Pentecost Sunday and the new beginning of Advent was transformed; where there used to be Sundays 'after Pentecost' we now have the second round of the time per annum, or as we call it in English, 'Ordinary Time'--which doesn't mean that it's ordinary in the sense of plain, but that we keep track of it with ordinal numbers.

So when I first was learning the Extraordinary Form, I began to 'enrich' my celebration of the Ordinary Form with certain elements from the older tradition. For instance, on the first of July, if nothing else were going on, I would celebrate the votive Mass of the Precious Blood, in recognition of the feast of the Precious Blood assigned to that day in the Extraordinary Form. (In the Ordinary Form, what we sloppily still call "Corpus Christi" is now the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, obviating the second observance.)

On the weekdays after Pentecost, as Ordinary Time resumed, I would sneak in a votive Mass of the Holy Spirit or two, so long as the day was free for such a thing. I thought I was recognizing the older observance of the Pentecost Octave by doing so. And I will admit that there was a little feeling in me, as many have felt, that the suppression of the Octave was one of the misfortunes of the reform.

So, is this a legitimate and sensible choice toward 'mutual enrichment,' or is it contrary to the form and flow of the Ordinary Form? Were my votive Masses of the Holy Spirit an enriching strategy for recognizing the tradition that used to be there--and now continues to be in the Extraordinary Form--or are they a distracting act of pretending that does violence to the change of season that the Ordinary Form supposes?

I was just thinking on this as I look forward to Monday, which will be a very odd liturgical day for me. It will begin in Boston as Monday of the eighth week in Ordinary Time, so my votive Mass of the Holy Spirit would be an option for the morning. God willing, however, I will conclude the day by transitioning into the Roman-Franciscan calendar in Italy, where Monday is the obligatory memorial of St. Mariana de Jesús de Paredes.

So, what do you think? Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit or not?

in aliam terram ad faciendam poenitentiam

cum benedictione Dei, of course.

When a letter of obedience suddenly made this new assignment in Rome real a few weeks ago, there were many practical details to look after. Attending to all of them, I didn't really think to become anxious or even excited about the move. As of today almost everything is done and squared away: I'm just about packed, with just some minor questions about what's going to fit and what will have to be left behind, other things have been stowed in a friary basement, the car I've been using has been passed on to the next friar, my American cell phone has been disconnected.

It's funny how the unfolding of life shifts how one looks at the past. I first moved to Boston from the old Capuchin novitiate in Mt. Calvary, Wisconsin, at the end of the summer of 2002. Five years later I had an MDiv and an STL and had made my final vows in the Order. As I went to my first assignment in Yonkers, New York, and was ordained priest there, I had a strong sense of having arrived, of having landed in the place to which I had been journeying--whether I knew it or not--for a long time. Three years later I was back in Boston starting another degree program. At that point my time in the parish ceased to be a landing and began to be an interlude, a kind of blessed break between academic assignments.

As I experience the shock of this new assignment now becoming real, memories of prior moments in Italy come up in prayer as matter for re-vision in the Spirit. One evening twenty years ago this spring, I was on a city bus in Florence with my college girlfriend, on our way to see the Ramones. I remember another kid on the bus trying to strike up a conversation by addressing me quizzically: "Punk Americano?" In those days I wasn't even baptized, though I would be just a few months later. I was thinking about that night yesterday when I got a shout-out and good wishes for my journey from a local college radio legend here in Boston, Joanie of the Late Risers' Club on WMBR.

The following spring I found myself in Italy again. Having taken our Easter break from University College Galway as a chance to wander around on the continent, this kid Travis and I eventually found ourselves in Assisi. It was there that we split up; he wanted to try to go skiing in Switzerland and I wanted to stay in Assisi to make a retreat of sorts. I spent almost a week getting to know the place and attending prayers and Masses in various Churches. I remember one afternoon I was hiking around on the trails out around the Carceri. I paused in my rosary to notice the beauty and solitude of the place. I thought about how nobody in the whole world knew where I was or what I was doing, and how secret was my prayer. I experienced a refreshing sense of being at home, of being where I belonged. At the time I interpreted this as an attraction to the Franciscan family, and this was certainly true. But the Holy Spirit knew it was even more than that, as He always does.

Comfort in Ruin

In various places I saw this week the announcement from the Canadian bishops' conference regarding bishop Raymond Lahey having been dismissed from the clerical state. (Read the whole thing here.)  Lahey, you will recall, was caught with child pornography at the Ottawa airport.

The bishops' announcement details the effects of the penalty: "loss of the rights and duties attached to the clerical state, except for the obligation of celibacy; prohibition of the exercise of any ministry, except as provided for by Canon 976 of the Code of Canon Law in those cases involving danger of death; loss of all offices and functions and of all delegated power, as well as prohibition of the use of clerical attire."

But it's the next sentence that struck me the most: "Lahey has accepted the Decree of Dismissal, which also requires him to pray the Liturgy of the Hours in reparation for the harm and the scandal he has caused, and for the sanctification of clergy."

I find that very comforting.

Even I should make a complete ruin of the vocation God has given me in his mercy, and even if I should become such a wicked priest as to require my dismissal from the clerical state, I will still have the Liturgy of the Hours and the privilege of praying it for the Church and the world. Even if I should make such a mess of the vows of my religious profession and the promises of my ordinations, that promise I made to pray the Hours on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary in 2006 will always be with me. Even if I should die and go to hell, it will be my last joy to tell the devil that it was the privilege of this ruined soul to pray his breviary up to that moment.

One doesn't just all of a sudden have a laptop full of child pornography. I'm guessing that on the way to such a thing there are various moments when one might notice the destructive and abusive descent he was making. But anyone who is a sinner knows the power of concupiscence and denial in this regard.

So as I was praying the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer today, it was one of my intentions to pray for those who were abused in the production of the images on Lahey's laptop. And I pray also that all the victims of sexual abuse by priests would forgive me for praying for them without knowing what else to do about the sicknesses in the clergy at the root of their victimization. And I hope that Lahey, according to his decree of dismissal, is praying for me.

Liturgical Kludgery: The Utility of Paper Clips

Paper clips are very versatile. Since they can can be had in different colors, they are eminently useful for liturgical kludges.

Here a rubric red (apologies for the redundancy) paper clip affixes the rarely heard nuptial hanc igitur to the Roman Canon:

For a portable photocopy of the Exsultet, a paper clip of Easter white:

And when the zipper pull on my everyday alb broke after six years of dutiful service, the same baptismal paper clip stepped in to keep things running. Dealba me, Domine.

Near and Far

I have been fortunate in my Christian life to have lived most of it--so far--in regions that have preserved the Ascension on its proper day. In most places, today is Thursday of the sixth week of Easter, a novelty of a liturgical day unknown to our ancestors in the faith.

I remember that it was the vigil of Ascension in 1992 when I first walked down to the church where I would be baptized and introduced myself to the pastor and the permanent deacon. My 'convert instructions' proceeded quickly from there--I had already journeyed through a sort of pre-catechumenate with the priest on campus--and I would be baptized on the other side of that summer on the feast that was then called the Beheading of John the Baptist.

I have always loved Ascension day. It seems to hold within itself the coincidences of opposites that make up the fruitfulness of the Christian mystery. In its curious mash-up of the chronologies and pneumatologies of the gospel traditions surrounding the Resurrection, we pray through the good news that Jesus' departure assures his abiding Presence among us, and are reminded that his descent into our humanity is the occasion of our ascent from the misery and frustration of selfishness and sin. A period marked by the apostles' privileged experience of the Risen Lord in little Galilee ends so that the Spirit who is his Presence may begin to be handed on to the whole world.

In prayer we experience a reflection of these mysteries in the little mirror of our soul. Who is this God to whom we pray, or this Spirit who prays in us? As no-thing, he seems to be more of an absence than a presence, he who is the Light so bright that our minds and hearts only see him as darkness. Indeed, it is the apparent inaccessibility of God that continues to draw us into the mystery. And so we continue in our interior striving after the adorable Mystery that is God Most High, with the striving that is the only true rest. The opposites that frame and enable our rational thought begin to coincide, a sign of our own ascension above ourselves, of our new freedom in Christ.

Cloud of Witnesses

Today my devout hope is to make my final visit to the Italian consulate, emerging with my visa. The letter partly pictured below will accomplish this. That the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, the Secretariat of State of the Holy See, and the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life--and one would hope, in the midst of their agreement, the Holy Spirit--have blessed by their seals my summons to Rome is supposed to convince the Republic of Italy to permit me entrance.

Layers and Locations

I had an amazing transition-time dream last night. Like a lot of my dreams it took the form of an adventure. There were curious but telling locations: a dark intersection at night, a celebratory event with friars, a hospital that turned out to be dedicated to St. Francis, Newhallville (a neighborhood near where I grew up), and the home of a high school classmate. Between these there were various means of transportation: walking with the GPS on my phone malfunctioning and a ride each in a soccer-mom van and a dumb waiter. Some of the friars were in the dream, as well as other people I haven't seen or thought about in ages.

In one part of the dream I was cooking. It was like one of the afternoons when it's my turn to prepare the friars' supper. The funny part was that people kept bringing me new ingredients. Since the new items I kept receiving were of very high quality, and also to be polite, I had to keep revising the meal in order to include them in the dish. It got to be very challenging. Isn't that a rich image of the spiritual life? God gives us increasingly rare and beautiful graces, and we are left with the challenge of integrating these into the whole of our journey with all of its weeds and wheat, thereby forever arriving at a new grasp of ourselves and who we are before and in God.

The dream reminded me of some truths about people and places in the journey. Because of God's eternity, and because our spiritual lives are nothing but our participation in the mystery of God, our spirituality is somehow simultaneous over the whole of life. When we enter into a new relationship, for example, we bring into it everyone else to whom we have related. This is why we are all such blessed messes of true love and destructive pathology in all of our relationships. Salvation is the process by which each relationship becomes ever more chaste and charitable, with new ones starting at a better baseline. Places exert a similar influence; the places we have been have formed us, and we bring them into the new places we settle. I guess that's why religious life-options like the monastic vow of stability or the mendicant life of itinerancy are so spiritually potent.

In my prayer today I'm just thanking God for everyone and each place I take with me into this new life.