Becoming the Priestly People We Are

Several weeks ago my pastor sent me an article by ecclesiologist Massimo Faggioli. As part of the subtitle was the phrase:  ". . . how COVID-19 is 'unmaking the Clericalist Church.'" A couple of weeks ago I met with a directee who posed questions about some of the things that were coming to the fore in recent papal and other Church documents -- things like indulgences (a devotional practice she knew little about and viewed with rightful suspicion), but also questions re how we approach a Sacramental Church that is not able to minister the Sacraments? Both Faggioli's article and my client's questions pointed directly at a  couple of linked deficiencies we have been talking about for a long time, but which have, with this pandemic, become critical, namely, Vatican II and the post-Vatican II Church identified us clearly as 1) a priestly people dwelling in a 2) fundamentally sacramental world, and living (too-often unconsciously) by extension, a liturgy of everyday life (my expression), rooted in 3) the presence of God and nourished by His Word and Spirit.

To a large extent, Faggioli argued, the Church is unprepared for this pandemic precisely because we are so seriously clericalized. I agree. When we are deprived of access to the Eucharistic Liturgy we turn (and return) instead to a devotional approach to spirituality which tends to privatize spirituality in a way which is unworthy of a truly priestly people. Let me be clear; there is nothing wrong with devotions per se: rosaries, novenas, chaplets of mercy, etc., have their place in every prayer life. But there are other forms of prayer and sources of Christian and ecclesial life which can serve not only to give a rightful sense of sacredness to the whole day, but especially, to form us as Christians in and through the Word of God. In this post I want to say a little about the liturgy of ordinary life and also  look briefly at a couple of things which might help folks make the best of their time in "lock-down" and provide ways of praying which contribute to 1) a sense of the sacredness of our days, and 2) our sense of being a priestly people living from and for the Word of God. None of this detracts from our need for ordained ministry; in fact, it will underscore our need for this even as it relativizes it. But it will also help allow us to discover the roots of our Sacramental lives in the sacramental nature of all reality and to make of our families what Peter Damian once called "ecclesiolae" or little churches -- a central image he used for hermitages.

A Little on the Liturgy of Ordinary Life: Family Meals as Eucharistic:

One of the things folks recognize when they attend Mass is the similarity it bears to family life more generally. The liturgy centers around a meal, but also involves periods of storytelling as we hear about the important people and events in our own history, lives, and ancestry. We signal how important these are by framing them within a ritual with significant gestures and symbols, and we mark their holiness and the way they call us to holiness in the same way. What is important for us to realize at this particular time, I think, is how it is the Mass participates in and reflects the larger holiness of our world, our relationships, our meals and other activities together. Yes, as the Church teaches the Eucharist is the sum and summit of our spirituality but that means it reflects and perfects our more usual moments and spirituality of ordinary life. It invites us to see meals (including preparation and clean up), and time together sharing stories, history, struggles, consolation, etc, as sacred events in an overarching liturgy of ordinary life.

We mark this truth by praying grace before (and after) meals. But we also do it simply by treating meals as eucharistic moments where Church is created and we are nourished and give to one another in all the ways meals make possible. For families who never have the time to prepare meals or eat together, the sense that Mass is the reflection and perfection of what happens (or should happen) every time people come together for a meal may be a new idea, but in this time of shelter-in-place when attending Mass is not possible, it becomes especially important that we take the time to observe family meals for the sacred time and opportunity for creating community they really are. We  might then also take some time for sharing Scripture, reading a Bible story, and praying the Lord's Prayer, before dinner (or we could use the Lord's Prayer to end the meal perhaps). I would suggest that the Easter Season is a perfect time to begin such a practice, especially during the lock-down practices most of us are living with. Such meals are not Eucharist, nor do they replace Eucharist; even so, they are profoundly Eucharistic and point to Eucharist if we allow them to do so.

Just as Eucharist nourishes us and allows us to experience the strength of communal life and love needed for Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and so, for the variety of darknesses that assail us, such "ordinary meals" do the same and are essential for us. We must recognize that everywhere we look we see the hand of God and we use the things of nature for our Sacraments. In some ways these are the perfection of nature and Symbols (not mere signs) of the presence and power of God. Bread, wine, water, oil, and beyond these, even breath, stone and wood -- all become ways in which the sacred quality of out world nourishes and inspires. If we can allow our ordinary reality to function as the gift of God it is, if we can learn to allow God to bless us and all of reality, we will help fulfill our vocations as God's priestly people -- especially at this time when ordained ministry has been limited in the ways it can serve us.

The Liturgy of Ordinary Life: Creating Days of Balance and Regularity

We do this by making of our days something ordered and given over to the regularity of prayer, work, recreation, community, and solitude. Psychologists tell us how important regularity is, how crucial it is to have things we can look forward to even as we fully engage with the present. How much more important all this is in a time of pandemic when the truth of our vocations to serve others with our lives removes us to the relative solitude known by hermits and cloistered religious. Monastics have known and practiced these things forever and the Church herself encourages us to build such things into our lives and, in a certain way, to make a liturgy of our days. As the priestly People of God we ARE Church and we are called to be Church in our everyday routines, our prayer, our family life, our solitude, our struggles, our work, recreation, and so forth. Again, our lives are meant to be liturgies and our homes are each meant to be "ecclesiolae" (little Churches) and we are the celebrants of this liturgical life.

Liturgy of the Hours:

One of the hallmarks of monastic life we can all gain from is the conviction that all of time is sacred and marked by the presence of God. Prayer is the way we make this presence conscious and real in our own time and space. In monastic, religious, and eremitical life one of the ways we do and have done this throughout almost the entire history of the Church is with the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours. With Vatican II the Church began to promote this as the official prayer of the Church and encouraged every Catholic to pray at least Morning and Evening Prayer as well as Night Prayer if possible. It is time to renew this encouragement. Many of the laity already pray "Office" because they are Benedictine oblates, or because their parishes have been successful in fostering the practice, for instance. There are manageable resources which allow folks to pray an abbreviated form of the Office like Magnificat, Give Us This Day (print and online versions), Universalis (online source), as well as Christian Prayer (a 1 volume version), for instance.

Each of these can also be tailored by the individual. They include psalms, canticles, prayers (especially the Lord's Prayer and intercessions), and brief readings from Scripture. If one can give 20-30 minutes to pray this, one can easily choose a different hymn or song (or play a CD or even use none), select a single psalm to pray slowly alone or with others, spend some time with the Scripture provided, modify the intercessions to meet needs we know of, and finish with the Lord's Prayer and a blessing, for instance. If  families use this for Night Prayer (my personal favorite "hour"), and however briefly they do this, they could end their time together with each member being blessed (signed on the forehead as is done in Church) by a parent, or for a couple, by a mutual blessing by spouses, etc. We may not be able to "spend" time in the ways we ordinarily do, but we can certainly find effective ways to sanctify (allow God to sanctify) it. This is one way the Church does this.

Lectio Divina:

Above all, during a time when folks are unable to attend Mass and receive Communion, it becomes critical that we recall what Vatican II taught about the presence of the living God in the Word of Scripture, namely, [[The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God's word and of Christ's body.]] (Dei Verbum, 21) Divine presence is very clearly affirmed in these two very different modes. This same affirmation is found in Sacrosanctum Concilium:  [[ He is present in His word since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church.]] (SC,7). To take time praying with Scripture, to learn to read this under the impulse of the Holy Spirit is to allow Christ to truly be present to us in the same way he is present under the consecrated species of bread and wine. While this happens in a preeminent way during liturgy, it also happens among God's priestly people engage in the reverent reading of Scripture as part of their own liturgy of ordinary life.

Summary:

Over the past almost 60 years the Church has tried to encourage the whole People of God (laos) to take seriously the ways in which they are called to be a priestly people. As we enter into this Easter Season, often without access to ordained ministry because of this pandemic, it becomes even more critical that we begin to take advantage of the sources of Christian life which do not require ordination but are central to the vocation of each and all of us as Laity. We can turn primarily to devotions which are private and may, especially in the given circumstances, tend to privatize our spirituality, or we can more primarily turn to those forms of prayer which build the Church by recognizing the sacramental character of all reality, the sacred nature of space and time, or by mediating the very presence of the Risen Christ in the Word of God. In this way we make of our own household the "little churches" of St Peter Damian. After all, this pandemic will continue on for some time and we have the time to build new habits, perceptions, and increase our own deep reception of Vatican II's teaching. We will all rejoice together when we come together with our ordained ministers (and how we miss their ministry!), but we will also do so as people who know more fully and effectively our own identities as members and representatives of a priestly people in a sacramental world.

What Reforms is Francis Calling For? A Beginning.

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I am not a scholar of Vatican II, but you seem to glow with enthusiasm over the potential for the Church in implementing more of its substance. I was wondering if you could say what else we might expect to evolve from the reforms begun? I would like to catch some of that glow for myself, though Pope Francis has already warmed my heart.]]

Many thanks for your question. It gives me a chance to reflect on precisely why I am so excited about the papacy of Francis and what kind of Church I do hope for precisely because of the reforms of Vatican II and the promise of their continued implementation in the future. We are used to thinking about Vatican II as a past event and already implemented. We celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Council this year and in many parishes there have been presentations on the council, on what was achieved and what was left to be achieved. For many attending those presentations what was clear was there was a tremendous excitement in the 60's and 70's, huge idealism and energy for a Church which could be the vehicle for the proclamation of the Gospel to a world truly yearning for it, a Church which really walked with people in their everyday situations and was more than a sacred oasis in the midst of chaotic profanity. However, what was also clear was the disappointment of the past 40 or so years as Vatican II's promise and challenge for reform was countered, eroded away, betrayed, or allowed to wither and die on the vines of  either a "hermeneutic of continuity," or a "hermeneutic of rupture."

General Comments on the Ecclesiology of Vatican II:

You see, this Church was the one which took the humanity of Jesus seriously as well as his divinity and learned its lessons from his own accompanying of people, his profound listening to and understanding of them, his teaching in stories which allowed them the privileged space to make a decision for or against him and the Kingdom he proclaimed but who, at the same time therefore continued to teach the unremitting mercy of God who would not relent from loving and calling them all of their lives.

This was the Church whose Lord was the One characterized by kenosis (self-emptying) and asthenia (weakness), the One who died for them while they were YET sinners; for that reason he is the one whose servants, therefore, were characterized by the same things. Note well that there was no denigration of God's greatness in any of this, and no diminishment of Jesus' Lordship. (Some today are complaining that Francis' penchant for dressing simply, wearing no cuff links or a pectoral cross of a base metal, as well as addressing Cardinals while standing on the same level or being seen eating or drinking anything other than the Eucharist "denigrates the papacy" so this is an issue.) Instead it gave us a God and Lord whose authority was shown as countercultural, powerful and creative as love and mercy are always powerful and creative, and compelling precisely because it raised everyone up in the truly humble recognition of their true dignity --- something authority and power in the Constantinian model never does.

This Church was Catholic in the more Greek sense of the term "katholicos" than the Latin sense of "universalis". What I mean by this is that this Church was catholic in the sense of leaven in bread dough; there is nothing left untouched by its presence, no bits of unleavened bread remaining while the majority of the loaf is leavened. The Latin sense of universalis had more the sense of a gigantic circle into which people were brought; the problem though was that no matter how large one drew or expanded that circle there were always persons that stood outside it, and perhaps, were left to stand outside it because, for whatever reason, they did not hear the Gospel from which it supposedly lived. I am convinced that when Francis spoke recently of the solemn nonsense of proselytizing and distinguished that from evangelizing, coupled with his insistence on a church which is not turned in on itself, he was encouraging us to see and be the church which was truly Catholic in the more Greek sense of the term. It is a Church which knows that with Christ the veil between sacred and profane was definitively rent in two and that there is no place from which the Word of God or its servants cannot and should not go. Christ, after all, descended into hell so that God might be implicated there and transform reality with that presence. The Church must act in no less a Christlike way in her own missionary character.

Finally, therefore, this Church is the Pilgrim People of God. Most fundamentally it is not that there is a Church to which people are then added. Most fundamentally the Church IS the called and assembled People. It has a structure, yes, forms of governance, ways of doing business (many of which may change), and so forth, but it IS the people who are continually called by Christ and for this reason it is always learning and teaching, alway moving forward, always in need of reform, always seeking to respond to and serve its Lord with greater fidelity and sensitivity, always finding ways to be that People from which the entire "sense of the Faith" comes. Another way of saying this is to note that the Church is NOT the Kingdom of God here on earth. The Church is a privileged means towards the Kingdom, a proleptic expression of the Reign of God, but it is NOT the Kingdom. Instead the Church lives from and for the Gospel of God and the Reign it announces. She serves that Gospel and awaits the day when God will truly be all in all --- when there will be a "new heaven and new earth". Again, she is a privileged servant in this but she does not confuse herself with God's reign, nor her servants with Christ himself.

Specific reforms we will see continued or initiated:

At this point I see a few central reforms coming with Pope Francis. The first is the primacy of the Gospel in the life of the Church and therefore in the life of every individual Christian. Vatican II's reception and the liturgical changes made recovered the primacy of the Word of God and there is no doubt that today's Catholics are more steeped in the Scriptures than ever before. But Scripture is a living thing requiring us to grapple with it daily. For many it is much easier to turn to doctrine and dogma as the measure of their lives and "Catholicity." What we see in Francis are clear examples of the Gospel acted out; we see what I wrote about earlier as "enacted parables" which have the power to draw in those who would hear the message being proclaimed. (Some, like the Pharisees in the Gospel a couple of Fridays ago, will see Francis doing good and claim it is by the power of  the devil; others will see evil being done. But those with eyes to see will hear the good news of the Kingdom of God in a way they have not been enabled to do before.) Those who live from the power of the Gospel know it is the power to embrace the whole world with God's love and to recognize the hitherto unknown God wherever he is.

The second change stems from this. Without losing our identity as Catholic Christians we will embrace ecumenism more whole-heartedly because our God is bigger than the Church and his presence is found outside her as well. Hebrews speaks of knowing God prior to Christ in fragmentary and partial ways. We will be called to be a Church with the gift of God's definitive revelation in Christ, but without diminishing the truth of God's presence in other faiths or in other forms of Christianity. Ecumenism seems to me to be particularly important in a world where religion is routinely used to divide people. In our own faith we know well that not every difference is significant enough to divide us because we proclaim the same Christ, know the same God in prayer, read the same Scriptures and, with whatever limitations we have, hearken to the same Holy Spirit.

We codified this conclusion in the Joint Declaration on Justification, a document with far-reaching conclusions we should remember in determining what truly divides and what more fundamentally unites denominations. Vatican II taught this and we have a far piece to go before we begin to achieve what it had in mind. I think we will become a Church which more and more truly dialogues with others because that IS the way of evangelization. (Lecturing, apodictic pronouncements are the way of proselytization.) Only in this way will we also be the learning AND teaching Church the world needs us so very badly to truly be. What we cannot be is a Church with nothing to learn nor a Church with nothing to teach. Both of these have been tried and failed. The first corresponds in many ways to those teaching a hermeneutic of continuity (in the sense the SSPX understood this term, for instance), and the second by those embracing the hermeneutic of rupture.

Another change we will see is greater collegiality including deliberative synodality on the part of Bishops. Vatican II allowed for synods of Bishops with deliberative power, but this has never been implemented. Doing so, however will help in our efforts to come to unity with our Eastern brethren for whom a particular model of Petrine ministry is problematical just as it will help us all move from the monarchical model of the Church which gained ascendancy in the Middle ages and was strengthened during the Counter Reformation or Early modern period of Catholicism. From this will also flow a less centralized Church and therefore, one which is more sensitive and responsive to the needs and gifts of local Churches. It will be a Church where the papacy protects unity but does not impose uniformity in its place. This is tremendously challenging but it allows deeper unity and authentic diversity as expressions of unity. It counters papering over profound differences with an externally imposed "Catholic culture" and then being surprised when the fruit rots from within, the souffle deflates at the slightest perturbation, or the whole reality explodes from built up tensions hidden by uniform language, praxis, piety, etc. (You can see why it becomes so important that we truly become a People for whom the Word of God is our lifeblood and the source and measure of all we are and do. It will always be Christ who holds us together despite our differences, nothing less and nothing other.)

Beyond this we will see a Church in which the caste or class system is at least allowed to die away. By this I mean  first of all that vocations will not be seen as higher or lower than others. Vatican II leveled a death-blow to this way of perceiving vocations with its teaching on the universal call to holiness but we have not truly accepted its implications. Every person is called to an exhaustive holiness and for that reason, no vocation can be "superior" or "inferior" to another one. Each one will be seen to have different gifts, and need the accompanying and completing gifts of others if the Gospel is to be fully proclaimed in the life of the Church; each one will have different rights and obligations but again, this does NOT mean one is "superior" or "inferior" to another in the way I believe Aquinas' theology has been commonly misinterpreted to mean. My own commitments will witness to celibate love and its importance in the Kingdom, but others' commitments will witness to the place of sexual love in the life of the Church and (as does my own celibate witness) as an icon of the eschatological spousal union with God to which we are all called.

And similarly we will see, I think, a Church in which other forms of that caste system is destroyed. Increasingly we will see a Church which embodies the truth Paul articulated so long ago:  [[26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free,nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.]] At the very least that will mean women in positions of influence and authority and, after some experience of what women bring to such positions and the life of the Church as a whole, a new "theology of women" as Francis has called for. It will mean the laity as such are granted a full place in the life of the church. With marginalized groups of all sorts I think we will increasingly become a Church which sees first of all that they are clothed in Christ and that most fundamentally, there is NO distinction.

Listening to Francis:

There are more specific reforms no doubt; I have not come close to even mentioning the majority of them. What is necessary for all of us I think is to listen to Francis really carefully. When he first began his papacy he began with symbolic acts and folks wondered if substantive change would follow. What we are finding is that those symbolic acts BROUGHT substantive change with them, called for further change, and challenged us each to see the enacted parable for what it was --- a world shaking and breaking language event. Similarly Francis has spoken of really key changes in his two interviews and his homilies. Certain phrases are code words for profound changes in mind and heart which, like yeast in dough, eventually leave nothing untouched or unchanged. Evangelizing vs Proselytizing is one of these. "A Church which risks mistakes rather than being turned in on itself" is another. A Church with a preferential option for the poor and "a poor church" are others. But we must take the time to really penetrate these code words, these bits of leaven, and implement them in whatever ways we personally are called to do.

Sometimes when New Testament scholars think about the importance of certain pieces of the Scriptures they recognize that had a single story been the only one to have survived until today it would have been enough. If Luke's writings, for instance had been lost but his parable of the Prodigal Sons/Prodigal Father survived we would still have Luke's' entire version of the Gospel in nuce. The Lord's Prayer functions the same way, but for that to be the case we must do more than repeat it unthinkingly. With Francis we have been given a clear charter of the way he desires to lead the Church and the Gospel life he wishes us each to model for others. If he never gave another interview, wrote another encyclical, rode another bus with people he considers his very own, or gave that brilliant smile which screams the joy of a man who knows the mercy of God, we have already been given a clear vision of the courageous and catholic Church VII called for. Vatican II was a beginning. Now we must implement it in the ways Francis is clearly indicating to us. A poor church, a joyful church, a church which lives from and proclaims the mercy of God universally and without qualification --- a truly Catholic Church which will set the world on fire with God's love and make all things new --- that is the vision Vatican II had and which Francis has already made QUITE clear he shares completely.

On Pentecost, Prayer Experiences, and Vatican II

I have written in the past about a significant prayer experience I had where I felt I had God's entire attention, where God was absolutely delighted that I was "finally" there, and where I was completely assured that the rest of God's creation, paradoxically, enjoyed his entire attention as well. I have also written that from time to time I return to this prayer experience to tap into it again, to drink from its living waters, and to breathe in the strength of its Spirit. I do this because it still lives inside me; it is part of my living, daily memory and has not yet and (I strongly suspect) will never be exhausted of its riches. It serves still as a gateway to a "place" where God is waiting with much to show me. More, it serves as a gateway to that "place" where God is allowed to be completely attentive to me, the place created when he loves me as he wills to do and I am truly myself.For all of our clamoring and self-centeredness, our love of being at the center of attention and acclaim, it is hard to be the center of God's attention. It is hard, in other words, to be wholly and exhaustively loved by God. It calls for our whole selves to be illuminated by that attention and healed by that love.  And yet, this is one piece of today's Feast. Today God showers us with gifts and they are the gifts of God's very self. God gives us his full attention and showers us with all the riches that attention implies so that we ourselves might likewise give God and his Reign in our midst our full attention.  Today God equips us with the gifts which make us truly human and commissions us individually and communally to be his People in a world which hungers for this desperately.


Sunday morning at our parish Eucharist I had the sense that just as I sometimes touch back into that prayer experience which was so essentially "pentecostal" for me, our community also touched into an experience of the Spirit which has been muffled in the Church  for the past 30 or more years (and even in our own parish to some extent --- though not because of our pastor or staff!). We have all felt the renewed excitement and hope that has come with the election of Francis as Bishop of Rome (the title he himself consistently prefers). We have felt a sense that the reception of Vatican II that seemed to have been stopped and even reversed with the "Reform of the Reform" has begun again and we have watched as Francis makes choices about the way he will embody his Office and exercise the authority of the Church which inspire and give hope that the Spirit is truly alive and well in our Church. And today we celebrated that hope, that presence, --- the fire and wind of the Holy Spirit --- and the compelling commission that flows from it.

There was a renewed excitement and enthusiasm at the Mass. Our presider was Bishop emeritus Sylvester Ryan from Monterey, a lovely, down-to-earth and wholly pastoral man whose gentle voice also resonated with the power of a Spirit-empowered faith. (There was a kind of cognitive dissonance as this white-haired elderly priest proclaimed the joy and challenge of  Pentecost in a voice which echoed with strength and passion! It was a lovely picture of the reality of this event all by itself.)  He reminded us that at Christmas and Easter we celebrate something that HAS happened, but today on Pentecost we celebrate something that IS happening. He reminded us that Pope Francis had told folks in the Diocese of Rome that one should be able to see from the look on faces leaving Mass that they had really heard the Good News proclaimed. I think that there was no doubt that today that happened at St P's. We had fewer people present in the assembly than usual and yet the alleluia even before the Gospel and the great Amen both raised the roof.  People are open to the gift of the Spirit. They are hungry for it and excited by it.


It is important for me to tap into that prayer experience again from time to time. In doing so I am not merely indulging a past memory of something that took place 30 (or so!) years ago; instead it involves opening myself to a continuing reality which enlivens, nourishes, inspires, challenges, and commissions right here and now. Similarly I think the entire People of God needs to allow itself to tap back into the experience of wonder, excitement, hope, purpose, (and more than mere purpose ---mission!) occasioned by Vatican II in those early days. This is especially true if the memory has faded or we have become jaded with disappointment and enervated with fatigue because of the last 30-plus years or so. For each of us, doing so can open a window to the Holy Spirit which allows the Feast of Pentecost to be as amazing for us as it was for the early Church. God wishes to shower us with his attention and all the gifts his love brings. He asks us to truly allow this. Let Pentecost happen in the Church. Let Vatican II truly be fully received!!