Q. Concerning your answer re handshaking at Mass in The Wanderer dated January 8, I would like to put Msgr. Pope’s comments on understanding the Mass in our parish bulletin at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Ft. Bragg, Calif., but I’m not sure if I need permission. It was an unusually beautiful short explanation, and there is much need for education on this topic. I have always wondered why the handshaking method did not get any directive when it began. When scattered parishioners at daily Mass “snaked” across empty pews to reach one another or wandered around the church to find friends, I knew this was not a proper practice.
But then why was there no admonition about abandoning the practice of genuflecting before entering a pew upon arrival in church? I know some churches do have more decorum than mine, but this 81-year-old remembers when all churches had the same practices. Oh well, it’s an opportunity to practice patience. Please let me know about using Msgr. Pope’s column. — C.T., California.
A. Msgr. Charles Pope is a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington and editor of a blog that offers great insights into Catholic beliefs and practices. You can seek permission to use his comments on the Mass by contacting him at http://blog.adw.org/author/cpope.
Q. I understand that John Carroll was appointed by the Vatican as the first archbishop in the United States. I don’t believe he was even a priest. How could that be? — A.W., via e-mail.
A. Your understanding about Archbishop John Carroll (1735-1815) is incorrect. Cousin of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, John joined the Society of Jesus in 1753 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1769. He taught briefly in Europe and returned to America in 1774, becoming active as a missionary and an ardent supporter of American independence from Britain. Carroll was appointed bishop of Baltimore by Pope Pius VI in 1789 and, when the rapidly growing diocese was divided into four sees in 1808, he became archbishop of Baltimore.
In seeking toleration for the Catholic Church, Archbishop Carroll responded to anti-Catholic attacks by saying that, during the War for Independence, Catholic blood “flowed as freely to cement the fabric of independence as that of their fellow citizens. They [Catholics] concurred with perhaps greater unanimity than any other body of men in recommending and promoting that government from whose influence America anticipates all the blessings of justice, peace, plenty, good order, and civil and religious liberty.”
Q. I have three questions: 1) St. John Paul II said that Purgatory is not a place but a state. Please explain. 2) I understand with God there is no future or past. He is always in the present. Reading the Old Testament, it was at least several thousand years from the sin of Adam and Eve to the birth of Christ. Why did God wait all those centuries to send a Redeemer? 3) Christ said there are many mansions in His Father’s house. I take it that there are many degrees of happiness in Heaven, based on how productive one’s life was on Earth. Is that correct? — M.V., Florida.
A. 1) In a series of Wednesday audiences in July and August 1999, St. John Paul talked about Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory not as physical places but as states of being. He said on August 4 that the term Purgatory “does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence. Those who, after death, exist in a state of purification are already in the love of Christ who removes from them the remnants of imperfection.”
This is not a novel idea, as Fr. John Hardon explains in his Catholic Catechism:
“In spite of some popular notions to the contrary, the Church has never passed judgment as to whether Purgatory is a place or in a determined space where the souls are cleansed. It simply understands the expression to mean the state or condition under which the faithful departed undergo purification” (pp. 274-275).
When the late Holy Father made similar comments about Heaven and Hell on July 21 and July 28, he was echoing the Catechism of the Catholic Church (cf. nn. 1023-1037), although he did say that “more than a physical place, Hell is the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all light and joy.” This implies that there may be a “place” where the resurrected bodies of the damned are confined. Just as there may be a “place” in Heaven where one can see the glorified bodies of Christ, His Mother, and all the blessed.
But whatever the reality of the afterlife will be, we definitely want to experience the joys of Heaven and avoid the torments of Hell.
2) We don’t know why God waited so long to send a Redeemer into the world, although as you point out, everything is present tense to God. All we know is that Jesus came, as St. Paul said, in the “fullness of time” (Gal. 4:4). Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 702) says:
“From the beginning until ‘the fullness of time,’ the joint mission of the Father’s Word and Spirit remains hidden, but it is at work. God’s Spirit prepares for the time of the Messiah. Neither is fully revealed but both are already promised, to be watched for and welcomed at their manifestation. So, for this reason, when the Church reads the Old Testament, she searches there for what the Spirit, ‘who has spoken through the prophets,’ wants to tell us about Christ” (cf. 2 Cor. 3:14; John 5:39, 46).
3) When our Lord told the apostles that there are many mansions or “dwelling places” (John 14:2) in Heaven, He meant that not all will have the same degree of happiness there. Although each person will be perfectly happy in knowing and loving God, and will have all the joy that he or she can bear, the degree of happiness will vary according to the life we lived on earth. “The brightness of the sun is one kind,” said St. Paul, “the brightness of the moon another, and the brightness of the stars another. For star differs from star in brightness. So also is the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:41-42).
In other words, those who loved God ardently on earth, who bore trials and crosses patiently, and who lived lives of heroic virtue will have a higher degree of happiness in Heaven than those who did the minimum required of a follower of Christ and, more or less, backed their way into Heaven. Again in the words of St. Paul: “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Cor. 9:6).
Q. When does transubstantiation actually take place during the consecration of the Mass? — D.M.D., Massachusetts.
A. Transubstantiation is the word coined at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 (although the dogma had been believed and taught from the beginning of the Church) to describe the changing of the substance of bread into the Body of Christ, and the substance of wine into the Blood of Christ. The term was affirmed by the Council of Trent in 1551, by Pope Paul VI in his Credo of the People of God in 1968, and by the Catechism in 1992. This change is effected when the priest pronounces the words of consecration: “This is my body. . . . This is my blood.”
“It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament,” says the Catechism (n. 1375). “The Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion. Thus St. John Chrysostom declares:
“ ‘It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but He who was crucified for us, Christ Himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God’s. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things offered’ [St. John Chrysostom, prod. Jud. 1:6: PG 49, 380].”
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