Finding the truth about liturgy…

Dear Friends,

You wouldn’t know it by the content of this site, but I love the liturgy of the Church. I have prayed the Liturgy of the Hours since becoming Catholic. I am often mesmerized by every movement at Mass. I love the rhythm of the Church – the music – the seasons – the feasts – the solemnities. I am moved by the thought that as I engage in the liturgy I am engaging with billions of people both inside and outside of time who are joining together in worship that is not bound by time and space. I am awestruck by the idea that we meet Christ Himself every time we receive Him in the Eucharist. Still, I avoid the topic as a normal course on this blog.

Why? Because like me, the topic gets under your skin. And when it gets under the skin of a writer, and under the skin of the readers, and under the skin of responders, fights break out in the comboxes and divisions emerge; ugly and shameful divisions. The good news is that very little of that has happened here – my goal is to keep it that way.

Liturgy is just hard and challenging to deal with. So, instead of covering it on this site in a less-than-helpful way (at least not as a primary focus) I want to point you to a rock solid and trustworthy source on the subject, the Adoremus Bulletin.

For those of you confused, saddened or just positively curious about what you have experienced, Hellen Hull Hitchcock and the team at Adoremus will provide a light of clarity and precision. For those of you who love what is good, true, and beautiful, you will be deeply encouraged and reinforced in your love for Christ in the liturgy of the Church. For those of you who energetically agree with me about liturgical matters, but who will be far more effective when you clearly understand the mind of the Church on these matters, you will be blessed and armed for the necessarily gentle but persistent battle to restore a proper sense of reverence and awe in our worship of the God of the Universe. If you love the liturgy, please visit Adoremus… subscribe, learn, support. You won’t be sorry.

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I am struggling with resentment towards the Church, what should I do?

Q: Dear Dan, I have been Catholic for three years now, and am very grateful for the gift of faith. However, I have recently been struggling with resentment towards the Church – feeling that there are too many demands, hardships, that too much is being asked of me. How does one combat resentment?

A: Dear Friend, welcome home! I am sorry to hear about your suffering. Immediately after reading your question, Jesus’ call to rest came to mind:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

These words are worth reading slowly. They show the great compassion that Christ has for us. He knows that we live heavily burdened by many things and he offers to free us from them. However, coming to this freedom is a path of allowing Christ to unravel the things that bind us to the world, the flesh, and the devil, and keep us from the perfect freedom that he has for us.

When we experience emotions like resentment toward the very instruments of grace and the means of the grace and love of Christ (the Church), then we know something is askew in our souls. But what is the source?

Sometimes when we feel a burden that is too great, it might be that we have placed more upon our shoulders than Christ has asked of us – a yoke that he has not assigned to us. This can happen when new disciples in their fervency attempt to conquer too many things at once. Jesus gives us the strength to carry whatever burdens we must in order to find the freedom and healing he offers to us. However, when we take on more than he has asked of us, we become weighed down, burdened, and our progress slows to an even more frustrating pace.

There are also cases where we have patterns of personal challenges that were present outside of our faith and then resurface in our relationship with God. For example, if we have had one or more parents that were more task rather than nurture oriented, we might also envision God as a taskmaster. In this case, the oppression we feel is not rooted in Christ but in our own expectations and in the roles that comfortably replicate the relational patterns of our childhood.

Then, there is the weight of our own sins. Sin obscures reality – like a fog that clouds our ability to see the truth. Depending on the density of the fog, we can easily lose our way and find ourselves in a spiritual wreck. This clouding of the soul can also yield affection for things we should not desire and repulsion for the very things that offer us true healing and rest.

A final possible source is the enemy of our souls himself. I shared your question with my wife and she pointed me to a quote from Father Adolph Tanquerey. In this brief quote he summarizes a reflection from St. Ignatius’ second rule of discernment regarding what happens when a soul turns to God:

When it is a question of souls that have sincerely returned to God, the devil excites in them sadness, torments of conscience, and creates all manner of difficulties in order to make them lose heart and halt their advance. The good spirit, on the contrary, inspires them with courage, energy and good thoughts to make them grow in virtue. By the fruits then will the tree be judged; whatever hinders progress comes from the evil one, whatever promotes it proceeds from God. (Spiritual Life: 953)

It is important to understand that Father Tanquerey assumes that we are operating from the standpoint of an authentic, even if yet imperfectly lived, embrace of Church teaching. Sometimes people judge things as “good” and from God because they make them feel good or feel like they are making progress. However, there is never real progress when living in willful opposition to the truths of God and thereby to God himself.

So, these are a few ways to evaluate our struggles though they might not be exactly on target for you. Regardless, it would be wise for you to take this to confession. During your confession, openly share your angst with your priest and ask for some insight into why you might be feeling this way. I suspect that you will find your way free of this battle (at least for a time) if you confront it without hesitation.

Be assured of my prayers, and the prayers of the many good people who frequent this site.

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Anxiety and Contemplation

…too many people are distressed [have anxiety] because they are not contemplatives. They do not take the time to nourish their own hearts and return them to peace by gazing with love upon Jesus. In order to resist fear and discouragement, it is necessary that through prayer – through a personal experience of God re-encountered, recognized and loved in prayer – we taste and see how good the Lord is (Psalm 34). The certitudes that the habit of prayer inculcates in us are considerably stronger than those that flow from reasoning, even at the highest level of theology.  Fr. Jacques Philippe – Searching for and Maintaining Peace

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Catechism – Vocal Prayer – 2703

…God seeks worshippers in Spirit and in Truth, and consequently living prayer that rises from the depths of the soul. He also wants the external expression that associates the body with interior prayer, for it renders him that perfect homage which is his due.

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97. Prayer and Action (Mark 1:29-39)

“If you seek to know where you can stay, stay close to Christ, because he is the way.”  - St. Thomas Aquinas

Mark 1:29-39: On leaving the synagogue, he went with James and John straight to the house of Simon and Andrew. Now Simon’s mother-in-law had gone to bed with fever, and they told him about her straightaway. He went to her, took her by the hand and helped her up. And the fever left her and she began to wait on them. That evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were possessed by devils. The whole town came crowding round the door, and he cured many who were suffering from diseases of one kind or another; he also cast out many devils, but he would not allow them to speak, because they knew who he was.  In the morning, long before dawn, he got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there. Simon and his companions set out in search of him, and when they found him they said, ‘Everybody is looking for you.’ He answered, ‘Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country towns, so that I can preach there too, because that is why I came.’ And he went all through Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out devils.

Christ the Lord Christ is a man whose whole attention is focused on others. Simon and his disciples come to him the morning after a day like none they had ever known before. Christ’s popularity was at a zenith, after his immensely successful preaching, his casting out a demon in the synagogue, and his evening of miraculous cures and exorcisms. They surely thought that he would claim the Messianic kingship right away and gather an army to cast off the despicable Roman rule, or something to that effect. When they awoke to find him gone, they searched apprehensively for him, lest they miss their chance for glory (the townspeople were already rallying and demanding his presence). But when they find him, alone in prayer on the mountaintop, and they tell him that everyone is looking for him, Christ answers with what was to be the first of many surprises: it is not for personal glory that he has come, but to fulfill a mission received from another, and so he must move on. They are welcome to come with him, but whether they do or not, he will be faithful to his Father’s will.

In a world inundated with the ethos of “success” and “achievement,” where great souls are withered by the rat race of petty promotions and vaporous rewards, the selfless, transcendent purpose of a man entirely focused on fulfilling someone else’s plan (i.e., God’s) may perhaps furrow our brow, but doesn’t it also stir us to admiration? Such is our Lord, who hopes that our admiration will evolve into heartfelt emulation.

Christ the Teacher  Jesus Christ was God become man. His human nature was united with the power of his divine person. He was perfect, sinless, without any selfishness, laziness, or pride. His character was flawless, as firm as the mountains and as gentle as a mother’s caress. His mind was beyond brilliant, filled with the radiance of divine light and understanding. No emotional scars from a difficult family upbringing (Mary was without sin too, and Joseph was a saint), no personality disorders or imbalanced self-esteem – no lacks, no wounds, no imperfections at all. And yet, over and over again in the Gospels, we see him go off to be alone in prayer: “In the morning long before dawn, he got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there.”

Christ was perfect, God from God and light from light, and yet he needed to reserve time just to be alone with his Father; he needed to go off and pray. He even had to get up early to make time for it. Sometimes he had to stay up late in order to make time for it. But he always did it.

If he, who was perfect, needed prayer in order to fulfill his life’s mission, what does that imply for us, who are so imperfect, so weak, so vulnerable to every sort of temptation and wounded by every kind of sin? Christ was a man of prayer, and, as he himself put it, “no disciple is greater than his master” (John 15:20).

Christ the Friend  It’s not only the simple fact of Christ’s miracles that demonstrates his personal love, but even the manner in which he performs them. Simon’s mother-in-law is sick in bed with a fever. In the ancient world, fevers posed greater threats than they do today. If the fever was the result of an infection (which fevers frequently are), it could indicate an impending death, since there were no antibiotics; this explains the apostles’ concern. Jesus could have snapped his fingers and immediately cured her; but instead, he goes over to the bed where she lay, grasps her sweaty, feverish hand in his own firm, gentle grip, relieving her sickness with his touch, and then helps her up. In Jesus Christ, God comes to meet us in the reality of our humanity, bringing the warmth of his divine light into its most ordinary nooks and crannies.

Simon’s mother-in-law: When I woke from the fever, I felt… well, how can I describe how I felt? Normally such a long, severe fever wears you out, but when I woke from this one I felt buoyant, glad, strong. I felt a healthy, invigorating warmth flowing through me, banishing the fever’s enfeebling heat. And then I realized that this new strength was flowing into me. Only then did I turn and look to see who was holding my hand: Jesus.

Simon had told me about him, but I had never met him before. And yet, his smiling eyes told me he knew me. He didn’t have to speak any words. Right away he was my oldest friend as well as my newest friend. It sounds so strange, but it’s true. Suddenly, under his gaze, with his hand holding mine, all the different parts of my life fell into place. My heart and mind came into focus as they never had before. I wasn’t just cured from the fever; I was somehow new. Without even thinking, I smiled back at him and rose to start preparing some supper for him and his companions. Healthy? Yes, I was healthy again, healthier than I had ever been before.

Christ in My Life  Lord, by making me your disciple, you have shared your mission with me. I am your missionary. You want to reach out to others through me; I am part of your mystical body. O Lord, fill me with enthusiasm and zeal for this wonderful and daunting mission of building your Kingdom! It is far beyond my capacities, but that doesn’t matter, as long as you lead me.

Prayer is a mystery to me, Jesus. Sometimes I seem to pray well, while other times I’m completely lost. But I know that you have given me the gift of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within me, teaching me and coaching me. Lord Jesus, I believe in you, and I know that without a healthy, growing life of prayer, my soul will wither. Dear Lord, teach me to be docile to the promptings of your Holy Spirit.

You continue to touch me, just as you touched Peter’s mother-in-law, whenever I receive you in the Eucharist. Thank you, Lord, for staying so close to me, for bringing your saving grace into my life in such a human way. Teach me this same gentle, caring manner as I reach out to help my neighbors.

PS: This is just one of 303 units of Fr. John’s fantastic book The Better Part. To learn more about The Better Part or to purchase in print, Kindle or iPhone editions, click here. Also, please help us get these resources to people who do not have the funds or ability to acquire them by clicking here.

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