By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
The Word Incarnate is the One we receive at Christmas and for whom we prepare in Advent, running in love to meet Him. Words are the means by which we grow in intimacy with the Lord in prayer and worship.
Although an increasing number of Catholics are less enamored of English in the liturgy, the argument is predictably offered that any language can certainly help any of us connect personally with God; even English. When I once commented that English is not a sacred language, a priest on Facebook barked back at me that English is a sacred language because any language in which we speak to God is sacred.
Except there’s the Church.
Any priest can abscond from reality anytime he chooses and some certainly do. Some of our Catholics may claim that because they experienced an emotional high from singing or praying in English that it must be the equal of Latin. Except there’s the Church.
Yes, obviously English can help each of us communicate personally and intimately with God. Yes, we can choose to speak to Him in any language we please. But the fact remains that we cannot be Catholics without the Church and the Church has a sacred language whether we like it or not. That language is and remains Latin.
Dioceses are spending vast amounts of money and dedicating numerous man hours to set up separate worship for Spanish and other language groups. Some young people prefer not to speak the language of their immigrant parents who can well be served by Mass in their native language. But the great effort going into dividing the Church up into language groups will not last and does not bring unity.
In the liturgy we tap into the vast and wide river of the prayer of the great Church, the vast Body of Christ around the world and through time. Emotions we experience during the liturgy enabled by English or Latin remain intensely personal and only with caution and prudence are shared or offered for the profit of others. But never are personal experiences prescriptive, to be manufactured into a scripted liturgical exercise for imposition upon others.
An example of a homemade liturgy are the exercises in group hysteria sometimes called “healing Masses” in which a priest places his hands on the heads of faithful kneeling or standing, some of whom thereafter fall back into the hands of waiting “catchers.”
This carnival act that passes for Catholic liturgy might pack churches because of the spectacle, which involves a vain seeking after miracle healings that it cruelly seems to promise to vulnerable sick persons. However, there is no such ritual to be found in any of our Catholic liturgical books.
Latin liturgical language is always about corporate identity, and no matter how one connects personally, the personal and communal aspects must always be held in balance. Christ comes through the Church. Personal preferences have no bearing on worship because worship is always an act of the Body of Christ as a whole, always eminently particular because first universal.
We call our beautiful experiences in prayer with God “consolations.” Although we can draw great joy and strength from these, we are cautioned against becoming dependent upon them to know that we are praying or that our prayer is accepted or worthy. We must exercise caution against becoming addicted to emotions or anything worldly, even the consolations which will one day end when God alone is for us “all in all,” for which reward we hope and pray.
Sometimes, during the offering of the Mass I experience intense emotions and it happened most recently both on the Saturday vigil preceding and on the first Sunday of Advent. Perhaps I will continue to draw inspiration to love and serve God’s people from it, but I cannot rely on it to do so.
We began our Advent journey guided by God’s word enriching this rich season of prayer, penance, and preparation in the life of the Church: “To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul.” Advent begins a new year in the Church’s life, and with it a new opportunity to seek hope in God alone.
Ad te, Domine, levavi animam meam:
Deus meus, in te confido; non erubescam.
Neque irrideant me inimici mei: etenim universi qui sustinent te, non confundentur.
V. Vias tuas, Domine, demonstra mihi: et semitas tuas edoce me.
To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul:
My God, in Thee I trust: let me not be put to shame.
Nor let my enemies laugh over me: for indeed, all who rely on Thee shall not be confounded.
V. Thy ways, O Lord, show unto me: and teach me Thy paths.
“ ‘Lift up (levate) your heads, because your redemption is at hand.’ Thus the Lord consoles us in the Gospel for today, which, in the main, is intensely serious. He wishes to come as our Redeemer on Christmas night, and for this the Advent season, now beginning, is to prepare us. He wants to free our soul from the foes that press it from every side, from enemies who think they can already rejoice at our defeat. Although we may often have looked up (levavi) to some vain thing, considering its attainment our life’s ambition, there has always come a time when we realized the nothingness of it all, realized that God alone can be our ideal, our goal. Only when we take cognizance of His ways (vias tuas, Domine) and walk accordingly, can we find true happiness. God alone can guard the beauty and nobility of our soul against its every enemy. At the beginning of the liturgical year our soul strives, therefore, to elevate itself, definitely and decisively, to Him who by His incarnation becomes its God (Deus meus) and who wishes to be intimately united with it in Holy Communion. For this reason Deus meus sounds almost jubilant. For this reason, too, strong accents are placed over in te confido; and non erubescam and neque irrdieant sound more like a song of victory than a suppliant petition.
“‘Lift up your heads, for your redemption is at hand.’ Sometime it will come, the perfected redemption, when the Son of Man will come in the clouds of heaven ‘with great power and majesty.’ Then all the world will see that no one who trusts in God is ever confounded. Then those who put their faith in men will stand abashed. Then the longing of all those (universi) who were turned toward God will be fulfilled and all the desires (exspectant) of the human heart will find their complete satisfaction in God” (Dom Johner, The Chants of the Vatican Gradual, pp. 13-14).
God offers Himself Incarnate as the tonic for all that ails in His creation, above all man, whose being aches for God in the restlessness which his experience with all else that is created leaves in him. God alone suffices, the God whose imprint upon man has left in him an idea for perfection, for love, joy, and peace.
Goals for Advent by which we run to meet the Lord include the gift of silence to inoculate against the disorder of noise, prayer to transform chaotic thought and speech, fasting to impose discipline upon the body, and serving others so as to become a gift to them and the Lord.
Let us run with love to meet the Lord through these means so that at His coming we may truly adore Him, both born for us at Bethlehem and at the end of the world as just Judge of all.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever. @MCITLFrAphorism
(Join me on pilgrimage to Fatima in October 2017 for the 100th anniversary of the apparitions. Visit proximotravel.com for more info. To find our tour itinerary and sign up use the search function and type in “Father Kevin M” and then refine your search by typing in the state of Maryland.)
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