By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
The turning of a new year brings a sense of newness to a very old thing: time itself. Though we measure the accrual of the days and years in increasing increments, adding to the count one day or one year at a time, only one thing is truly new: the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. His grace for us is truly new at each moment and truly transmitted through His Church, also now 2,015 years old. Only His Church, the true Body of Christ in the world, is the source of the newness of eternal grace in the risen Lord for each day we live in earthly time.
Only by bringing this sense of faith, alert and alive to the presence of grace, to our time can we effectively evangelize our fellow Catholics and the world. This must include the ways in which we employ the modern means of communication, which today are found by most users through the Internet. One of these is the social network “Twitter,” a convenient means for me to create a running memo of my concerns, thoughts, and reflections on the events of the day and the concerns of fellow Catholics in the “Twittersphere” and beyond.
To begin this new year of AD 2015 I expand here on some of these.
At the yearly Epiphany dinner for his priests of the Archdiocese of Washington at which I was present, Donald Cardinal Wuerl expressed once again his concern about what he and others call the “tsunami of secularism.” He shares the opinion of many that this phenomenon of modern life is the primary obstacle for families and parishes in the mission of the new evangelization.
I agree with his assessment of the nature of the atmosphere in which we live but, in many cases, that is where agreement ends. Do we double down on all the postconciliar innovations that resulted in rupture from our Catholic tradition? Many bishops have chosen this course. Or do we gradually re-implement and adopt once again the many beautiful liturgies, prayers, and customs in which our tradition is rich, but which were hastily jettisoned in some cases even before the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council?
The “tsunami of secularism” which often overwhelms families and individuals is best combated by reinforcing Catholic identity through means of tradition. Seminarians are voting in favor of the “tradition solution,” as evidenced, for one example, in the rebirth of Latin prayers of the breviary. The tweeting seminarians who share the Latin content online are the tip only of an iceberg, indicating there are many others that share their love of this rich resource of prayer, Scripture, and the Fathers for meditation, preaching, and teaching.
Some of our bishops, also, are signing on to a programmatic reclamation of the traditio. Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Neb., wrote about the celebration of Holy Mass “ad orientem,” or facing East, together with His people symbolic of the coming of the Lord. The bishop then celebrated the Mass at his cathedral facing liturgical east during Advent. Without Vatican Council teaching or authorization and in contradiction of the clearly expressed rubrics for holy Mass, the mania for facing the people through the entire liturgy swept through the Church like a virus, until even those who knew better were swept along in the ill-advised innovation.
Scholars and many churchmen knew well that not even Christ and the apostles faced each other during the Last Supper itself.
As recently as Advent 2014 Bishop Conley explained his support for the venerable custom of facing east in the celebration of the eucharistic prayer for the reason that “the symbolism of facing together, and awaiting Christ, is rich, time-honored, and important . . . as we await the coming of the Lord.”
“More recently, it has become common for the priest and the people to face one another during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The priest stands behind the altar as he consecrates the Eucharist, facing the people. The people see the face of the priest as he prays, and he sees their faces. These positions can have important symbolism too. They can remind us that we are a community — one body in Christ. And they can remind us that the Eucharist, at the center of the assembly, should also be at the center of our families, and our lives.
“But the symbolism of facing together, and awaiting Christ, is rich, time-honored, and important. Especially during Advent, as we await the coming of the Lord, facing the east together — even symbolically facing Christ together at the altar and on the crucifix — is a powerful witness to Christ’s imminent return.
“Today, at a time when it is easy to forget that Christ is coming — and easy to be complacent in our spiritual lives and in the work of evangelization — we need reminders that Christ will come.”
Cardinal Wuerl in his remarks at the January Epiphany dinner also mentioned Pope Francis’ Christmas speech to the Curia and the curious phrase “spiritual Alzheimer’s,” which the Pope coined as a means of critiquing some of his collaborators. Reports related that Vatican bureaucrats walked away after the talk feeling a little beaten up.
If the traditio, to which we can all readily point and which we can all readily reference, in particular as it has been handed down in the Traditional Latin Mass, is the true corporate memory of God’s people on earth, would that not mean that rejection of any elements of that tradition in favor of rupture or innovation would qualify as “spiritual Alzheimer’s”?
Thank you for reading and best wishes for a holy new year Anno Domini 2015.
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(Follow Fr. Cusick on Twitter @MCITLFrAphorism and on Facebook at Reverendo Padre-Kevin Michael Cusick. Father blogs occasionally at APriestLife.blogspot.com and mcitl.blogspot.com. You can email him at mcitl.blogspot.com@gmail.com.)
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