Metanarrative: Mass Schedules in the Katipunan/UP Area

A friend of mine has asked me on the schedule of Masses in the Katipunan/UP area. This led me to compile a good list of Mass schedules in the area. I hope this will help you as well.

Morning:
UP Diliman
6:00am

Dela Strada (intersection of CP Garcia -- the road going to UP Math -- and Katipunan)
6:00am

Our Lady of Pentecost (Varsity Hills, close to the gate at B Gonzales, the road in front of Miriam)
6:30am

Ateneo de Manila University - Gonzaga Hall Chapel (Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception)
6:55am

Noontime:
UP Diliman
12:00nn

Ateneo de Manila University - Gonzaga Hall Chapel (Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception)
11:30am (MWF)
12:00pm (TTh)
12:30pm (MWF)

Evening:
UP Diliman
6:00pm

Dela Strada (intersection of CP Garcia -- the road going to UP Math -- and Katipunan)
6:00pm

Our Lady of Pentecost (Varsity Hills, close to the gate at B Gonzales, the road in front of Miriam)
6:30pm

Ateneo de Manila University - Gonzaga Hall Chapel (Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception)
5:15pm (TTh only)

Wednesday Liturgy: Washing of the Feet on Holy Thursday

ROME, MARCH 28, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Q: I understand that it is in fact liturgically incorrect to have the main celebrant at the Holy Thursday Mass wash the feet of women. Correct? -- J.C., Ballina, Ireland.

During the Holy Thursday liturgy at our parish, there are a number of foot-washing stations set up around the Church, and the people in the pews get up and bring someone else to one of the stations and wash their feet. Most of the people in Church take part in this, washing feet and in turn having their feet washed. It takes quite a while. Is this liturgically correct? Are there any norms for foot-washing during the Holy Thursday Mass? -- B.S., Naperville, Illinois.

On Holy Thursday, at the washing of feet, the people, mostly youth, after having their foot washed, preceded to wash the next person's foot. Then they placed four bowls of water and four places before the altar, and the congregation was told to come forward and have their hands washed by the same people who just had their foot washed. We didn't. Everything felt out of order. -- E.K., Freehold, New Jersey

A: We already addressed the theme of washing women's feet in our column of March 23, 2004, and the subsequent follow-up on April 6.

Since then, there has been no change in the universal norm which reserves this rite to men as stated in the circular letter "Paschales Solemnitatis" (Jan. 16, 1988) and the rubrics of the 2002 Latin Roman Missal.

No. 51 of the circular letter states: "The washing of the feet of chosen men which, according to tradition, is performed on this day, represents the service and charity of Christ, who came 'not to be served, but to serve.' This tradition should be maintained, and its proper significance explained."

About a year ago, however, the Holy See, while affirming that the men-only rule remains the norm, did permit a U.S. bishop to also wash women's feet if he considered it pastorally necessary in specific cases. This permission was for a particular case and from a strictly legal point of view has no value outside the diocese in question.

I believe that the best option, as "Paschales Solemnitatis" states, is to maintain the tradition and explain its proper significance.

This means preparing the rite following liturgical law to the letter, explain its meaning as an evocation of Christ's gesture of service and charity to his apostles, and avoid getting embroiled in controversies that try to attribute to the rite meanings it was never meant to have.

Regarding the place and number of those whose feet are to be washed, the rubric, which has remained unvaried in the new missal, describes the rite as follows:

"Depending on pastoral circumstances, the washing of feet may follow the homily.

"The men who have been chosen are led by the ministers to chairs prepared in a suitable place. Then the priest (removing his chasuble if necessary) goes to each man. With the help of the ministers he pours water over each one's feet and dries them."

The number of men selected for the rite is not fixed. Twelve is the most common option but they may be fewer in order to adjust to the available space.

Likewise the place chosen is usually within or near the presbytery so that the rite is clearly visible to the assembly.

Thus, the logical sense of the rubric requires the priest, representing Christ, washing feet of a group of men taken from the assembly, symbolizing the apostles, in a clearly visible area.

The variations described above -- of washing the feet of the entire congregation, of people washing each other's feet (or hands), or doing so in situations that are not visible to all -- tend to undermine the sense of this rite within the concrete context of the Mass of the Lord's Supper.

Such practices, by greatly extending the time required, tend to convert a meaningful, but optional, rite into the focal point of the celebration. And that detracts attention from the commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, the principal motive of the celebration.

In other circumstances, such as retreats or so called para-liturgical services, it can be perfectly legitimate to perform foot-washing rites inspired by Christ's example and by the liturgy. In such cases none of the limitations imposed by the concrete liturgical context of the Holy Thursday Mass need apply.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Why No Chicken on Days of Abstinence

ROME, MARCH 28, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Several readers asked for further clarifications on some aspects of the laws of fast and abstinence (see our March 14 column).

Some inquired as to the use of derivatives such as chicken broth and the use of beef and chicken stock and animal fats in preparing foods.

Present canon law allows the use of sauces made from animal fats, as well as their use in cooking, so the use of beef or chicken stock would enter into this category.

While the use of chicken consommé (that is just the liquid) might fall within the law, it would be more in accordance with the spirit of abstinence to prefer a fish or vegetable soup.

Other readers pointed out occasional incongruities such as when fish is more expensive than meat.

The purpose of the law of abstinence is to educate us in the higher spiritual law of charity and self-mastery. Thus, fast and abstinence have always been tied to almsgiving.

In this way, it makes little sense to give up steak so as to gorge on lobster and caviar. The idea of abstinence is to prefer a simpler, less sumptuous diet than normal.

We thus have something extra to give to those less fortunate than ourselves and also train ourselves in freedom from slavery to material pleasures. Even a Catholic vegetarian can practice abstinence by substituting a typical, yet more expensive, element of the diet for something simpler.

All the same, the laws of fasting exist to give clear directions and preserve us from subjective indulgence in choosing our "sacrifices." But these laws have always been tempered by the reality of the situation.

For this reason the Church has continually granted indults so that nobody be involuntarily deprived of necessary foods. In some cases this has meant suspending abstinence on some days or for some categories of people; in others it has meant permitting meat when fish is an expensive delicacy or when eating meat is itself a rarity. In other cases it has meant substituting another kind of food for meat.

In all of these cases the basic rule of thumb is that the law of fast and abstinence should never impose a grave or unsupportable burden on an individual or family.

These indults are still very pertinent in poor countries where the basic diet varies little and consists of a few basic commodities such as rice, beans, corn or potatoes accompanied by small quantities of meat and other vegetables.

In the developed world the vast array of assorted foodstuffs available at the local supermarket make living the laws of abstinence relatively easy. In most cases one can forgo meat and still maintain a simple yet well balanced diet.

However, while being faithful to these laws we must always strive to penetrate the inner reasons for fast and abstinence and not just stay on the superficial plane of rules for rules' sake.

Focused Link: The Virtue of Justice

Justice is the virtue that perfects the will. It is defined as the constant and perpetual will to render each person his due.

The full article:
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/education/ed0285.html

Father Cantalamessa on Why Jesus Calls Us Friends

ROME, MARCH 24, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of a commentary by Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa on next Sunday's liturgical readings. He is the preacher to the Pontifical Household.

* * *

Fourth Sunday of Lent (B)
(2 Chronicles 36:14-16,19-23; Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21)

God So Loved the World!

In this Sunday's Gospel we find one of the most beautiful and consoling phrases of the Bible: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

To speak to us of love, God has made use of the experiences of love that man has in the natural realm. Dante says that in God exists, as though bound in only one volume, "what in the world is unbound." All human loves -- conjugal, paternal, maternal, friendly -- are pages of a notebook, or flames of a fire, which have in God their source and fullness.

Above all, in the Bible, God speaks to us of his love through the image of paternal love. Paternal love is made of encouragement, of impulse. A father wants his child to grow, pushing him to give the best of himself. This is why it is rare to hear a father praise his son unconditionally in his presence. He fears he will think he is perfect and make no further efforts.

A feature of paternal love is also correction. But a true father is also he who gives freedom and security to his son, which makes him feel protected in life. Herein is the reason why God presents himself to man throughout revelation as his "rock and bastion," a "fortress always close in anxieties."

At other times God speaks to us with the image of maternal love. He says: "Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you" (Isaiah 49:15). A mother's love is made of acceptance, compassion, tenderness; it is a "profound" love.

Mothers are always accomplices of their children and must often defend them and intercede for them before their father. One always speaks of God's power and force; but the Bible also speaks to us of a weakness of God, of an impotence of his. It is "maternal" weakness.

Man knows by experience another type of love, spousal love, of which it is said that it is as "stern as death" and whose flames "are a blazing fire" (Song of Songs 8:6). God has also taken recourse to this kind of love to convince us of his intense love for us. All the terms typical of the love between man and woman, including the term "seduction," are used in the Bible to describe God's love for man.

Jesus fulfilled all these forms of love -- paternal, maternal, spousal (how many times he compares himself to a bridegroom!); but he added another: the love of friendship. He said to his disciples: "No longer do I call you servants ... but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" (John 15:15).

What is friendship? Friendship can be a stronger bond than kinship itself. Kinship consists in having the same blood; friendship in having the same tastes, ideals and interests. It is born of trust, that is, of the fact that I confide to another my most intimate and personal thoughts and experiences.

Now: Jesus says that he calls us friends, because everything he knew of his heavenly Father he has made known to us, he has confided to us.

He has made us sharers of the family secrets of the Trinity! For example, the fact that God prefers the little ones and the poor, that he loves us as a father, that he has a place prepared for us. Jesus gives to the word "friends" its fullest meaning.

What must we do after recalling this love? Something very simple: to believe in God's love, to accept it, to repeat overwhelmed with St. John: "we know and believe the love God has for us!"

[Translation by ZENIT]

Article: The Meaning of Marriage

PRINCETON, New Jersey, MARCH 20, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Debates about the institution of marriage are often characterized as clashes between religious adherents and secularists, which imply the debate is one between faith and reason.

However, a new collection of essays from across the academic disciplines argues that marriage need not be defended solely through appeals to religious authority or tradition.

Robert P. George is co-editor with Jean Bethke Elshtain of "The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market and Morals" (Spence). He is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University and serves on President George Bush's Council on Bioethics.

George shared with ZENIT some of the arguments presented in the book as to why marriage is an "intrinsic good."

Q: What compelled you to compile this book of essays on the meaning of marriage? What is so special about this collection?

George: These essays are important because they demonstrate that marriage isn't a sectarian issue or even a narrowly religious one.

Quite the contrary, the essays demonstrate the public importance of marriage and our ability as rational people to grasp the meaning, value and significance of marriage even when we do not invoke or appeal to special revelation or religious tradition.

Last December, Jean Bethke Elshtain and I hosted a three-day conference, sponsored by the Witherspoon Institute, that brought together leading scholars from across the academic disciplines -- history, ethics, economics, law and public policy, philosophy, sociology, psychiatry, political science -- to discuss marriage.

Scholars presented papers on their academic discipline's contribution to our understanding of marriage, and each of the disciplines offered profound insights into the importance of marriage both for individuals and for the nation.

The papers did not invoke revelation, religious authority or sectarian reasoning. This was the best of what's been termed "public reason" at work.

And the conclusions from everyone at the conference were that: a) marriage matters; b) marriage is in crisis; and c) we could be facing the virtual abolition of marriage if we go down the road of same-sex "marriage."

Professor Elshtain of the University of Chicago and I decided to compile these essays into a book because the information and arguments we were fortunate enough to have heard at the conference need to be disseminated throughout our nation. Every American who cares about civil society, child well-being and the condition of marriage in our culture needs to know about the scholarly findings reported in this collection.

Right now there is a public debate going on about marriage, but all too often it has devolved into shouting matches about same-sex "marriage" alone.

Our project tried to avoid this pitfall, and to examine the entire range of social problems at stake in the discussion of marriage: fatherlessness, cohabitation, divorce, out of wedlock childbearing, etc.

While I cannot mention every chapter in the book, there are three essays written from a social science perspective that I will mention.

Don Browning of the University of Chicago and Elizabeth Marquardt -- author of "World's Apart" -- have a fascinating essay, "What About the Children? Liberal Cautions on Same-Sex Marriage."

Maggie Gallagher, the president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, has an insightful essay entitled, "(How) Does Marriage Protect Child Well-Being?"

W. Bradford Wilcox, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, concludes the book with a reflection on marriage's impact on the least well off in society, in his essay, "Suffer the Little Children: Marriage, the Poor and the Commonweal."

Other essays include an argument on how the acceptance of same-sex "marriage" would erase the grounds of principle for rejecting polygamy and polyamory, that is, multiple partner sexual unions; an illuminating discussion of how "no-fault divorce" -- unilateral divorce -- has weakened marriage as an institution, and how the lessons learned from our mistake in embracing "no-fault" divorce might make us cautious as we contemplate even more radical changes; and arguments about the importance of marriage for the legal, political and economic welfare of our society.

When a generation ago people began to discuss "no-fault" divorce, few even considered whether allowing Adam to more easily divorce Eve would have anything other than positive effects on marriage and society as a whole.

In hindsight we can see how the introduction of "no-fault" divorce altered -- for the worse -- people's understanding of the meaning of marriage, with profoundly damaging social consequences.

That experience should make us very skeptical of claims that we can recognize the relationship of Adam and Steve as a "marriage" without further eroding a sound public understanding of what marriage means and what it truly is.

Q: Turning from the book as a whole to your particular contribution, a chapter on practical philosophy and marriage: What do you mean in your essay when you say that marriage is an "intrinsic good"?

George: I mean that marriage is properly understood as more than a means to ends that are extrinsic to it.

The value of marriage is not merely instrumental. Marriage is a basic human good -- an irreducible aspect of the well-being and fulfillment of a man and woman who unite themselves to each other as spouses.

When one understands marriage properly as the permanent and exclusive union of sexually complementary spouses whose comprehensive, loving and faithful sharing of life is founded upon their "one-flesh" bodily unity, one sees that marriage provides a reason for action whose intelligibility as a reason does not depend on further goals or objectives to which it is a mere means.

In uniting a man and a woman at every level of their being -- the biological, the emotional, the dispositional, the rational, the spiritual -- marriage is intelligibly choiceworthy as an end in itself.

Just as the most fundamental point of non-marital friendship is friendship itself, and not other ends to which friendships may be useful as means, the most fundamental point of marriage is marriage itself.

Q: You note that much of the confusion about sex and marriage in our culture finds its roots in the thought of 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume. How is this so?

George: I don't want to place too much of the blame on poor old David Hume.

As I point out in my chapter of "The Meaning of Marriage," Hume himself held rather conservative views about marriage, recognizing it as a profoundly important social institution, one which needs and deserves support and protection by the formal institutions of society and by the customs and mores of the people.

The problem is not in what Hume taught about marriage; it is in what Hume taught about practical reason and moral truth.

As I've observed, a sound understanding of marriage recognizes it as an intrinsic good, or what, following Germain Grisez, I have called a basic human good -- something persons have reason to choose precisely because they grasp its worth as an irreducible aspect of human well-being and fulfillment.

But Hume teaches that there are no basic human goods, no more-than-merely-instrumental reasons for choice and action. Rather, Hume supposes, all of our ends are given by subrational motivating factors, such as feeling, desire, emotion -- what Hume called "the passions."

Reason, then, is reduced to a purely instrumental role in the domain of deliberation, choice and action. Reason cannot identify what is intelligibly desirable and thus choiceworthy; its role, on the Humean account of the matter, is merely to identify efficient means by which we can achieve whatever ends we happen to desire.

As Hume summed up his position, "reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and may pretend to no other office than to serve and obey them."

To the extent that Hume's teaching has been accepted, whether formally or merely implicitly, by contemporary men and women, it has led them to adopt a form of subjectivism -- sometimes called "moral non-cognitivism" -- that undermines a sound understanding of marriage and other basic human goods.

This is particularly damaging in the case of marriage, because marriage is the kind of good that can be participated in fully only by those who, however informally, understand it properly. Its capacity to enrich our lives as spouses -- and, where the marriage is blessed with children, as parents -- is significantly dependent on our understanding it and grasping its more-than-merely-instrumental value.

Q: You describe the good of marriage as a "one-flesh communion of persons." Is that a distinctly religious concept?

George: No. The intrinsic value of marriage, understood as a comprehensive, multilevel sharing of life founded upon the bodily communion of sexually complementary spouses and naturally ordered to procreation and the upbringing of children, can be grasped, and has been grasped, by people of different faiths and by those of no particular faith.

The teachings of most, if not all, religions extend to marriage in one way or another, but the good of marriage can be known, and is known, by reason, even when unaided by revelation.

Even when it comes to providing a critical reflective account of marriage, John Finnis has made the point that the greatest philosophers of ancient Greece and jurists of pre-Christian Rome were able to articulate the foundations of a sound understanding of this great human good.

Of course, the language of "one-flesh union" derives from the Hebrew Bible and is powerfully reaffirmed by Jesus in the Gospels. For Jews and Christians, revelation reinforces and illuminates a great truth of natural law.

Q: Section 1652 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "By its very nature, the institution of marriage and married love is ordered toward the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory." The Catechism thus appears to describe marriage in purely instrumental terms. Can you clarify how your position is consistent?

George: Sure. I have already remarked that married love and the institution of marriage are naturally ordered toward procreation and the upbringing of children.

But this is not to say that children are extrinsic ends to which marital union, in its sexual dimension or otherwise, is a mere means. "Ordered toward" does not mean "is merely a means to."

Perhaps the best evidence that the Church recognizes the intrinsic value of marriage and does not treat it merely as a means to procreation is her clear and unwavering teaching that people can have reason to marry, and may legitimately marry, and can be fully and truly married, even when the infertility of one or both spouses renders procreation impossible for them.

Marriages of infertile spouses are true marriages. They are not pseudo-marriages. They are not second-class marriages.

Because human beings are constituted as they are, thus constituting the human good as it is, it is intrinsically fulfilling for men and women to unite in a form of communion apt for -- "ordered toward" -- procreation and the upbringing of children even where, in their particular case, they will not be able to conceive or rear children.

Spouses truly become "one flesh" in their marital intercourse even when temporary or permanent infertility means that conception will not take place. It is worth noting that for Jews and Christians marriages are consummated by completed sexual intercourse, not by achieving the conception of a child.

However, nothing in the affirmation of this great truth contradicts the equally great truth that children conceived as the fruit of marital communion are indeed the "crowning glory" of marital love.

Children are not operational objectives of the sexual union of spouses or of the institution of marriage; rather, they, are gifts supervening on marital love to be welcomed and cherished as perfective participants in the community -- the family -- established by their parents' marital communion.

Q: Does the Church's recognition of the validity of infertile marriages contradict its teaching that marriage is necessarily the union of a man and a woman, rather than a union of any two persons, including persons of the same sex?

George: No. The key thing to see is that the Church, consistently with what we know by the light of natural reason, understands marriage as fundamentally and irreducibly a sexual relationship.

Any two -- or more -- people can live together, caring for each other and sharing each other's lives in many dimensions. But for a marriage to be brought into existence and be completed, a comprehensive, multilevel sharing of life must be founded on the bodily -- biological -- union of spouses.

A man and woman pledged to permanent fidelity to each other must become "one flesh" by virtue of the consummation of their union by intercourse in which they fulfill the behavioral conditions of procreation -- whether or not the non-behavioral conditions necessary for conception to take place happen to exist.

In the absence of true biological union, persons cannot be sharing each other's lives in the uniquely marital way; their sharing of life cannot be a comprehensive sharing, one in which their communion at other levels is founded on their bodily communion.

It is by performing marital acts -- acts that are procreative in type, whether or not they are reproductive in effect; and even if, due to disease, defect or a woman's age they cannot result in procreation -- that a man and woman pledged in permanent fidelity to each other consummate and renew their marriage as a one-flesh union.

This is why marriages cannot be between more than two persons, however fond they are of each other and however committed to the group each may sincerely be; and it is why marriages cannot be between persons of the same sex.

Once we understand marriage as truly a one-flesh union, we see that sexual activity between or among members of polyamorous groups or between partners of the same sex, however much they may desire it or find it satisfying, is inherently non-marital.

Whatever one makes of claims that sexual play can enhance the emotional bonding of participants in polyamorous or same-sex relationships, plainly it cannot unite the sex partners maritally. Whatever its motive, objective or point, it cannot be biological, "one-flesh," unity -- the very foundation and defining principle of marriage.

Please note, by the way, that the Church's teaching here reflects her understanding of the body as fully participating in the personal reality of the human being, and not as a mere subpersonal instrument for achieving ends or inducing satisfactions desired by the conscious and desiring aspect of the self -- considered, as in dualistic theories, as the real person who inhabits and uses a body.

The biological union of spouses in procreative type acts can be true personal communion, precisely because we are our bodies -- though, of course, we are not only our bodies -- we are body-soul composites. We are not non-bodily persons -- minds, souls, consciousnesses -- residing in, or supervening on, and using non-personal bodies.

Q: If marriage is so self-evidently good, then why does the state need to intervene to preserve it? Couldn't it be preserved in churches and religious communities where it is celebrated and lived in the fullest sense?

George: This is a superficially appealing proposition.

Its appeal fades, however, the moment we consider both: a) the importance of marriages, and thus marriage considered as an institution, to the well-being of society and the state; and b) the vulnerability of marriage as an institution to social pathologies and to ideologies hostile to marriage that weaken the institution's immunities to these pathologies.

The most powerful and basic reason for the public's interest in marriage and its institutional health is its unique suitability for protecting children and rearing them to be upright people and responsible citizens.

As Brad Wilcox, Maggie Gallagher and other social scientists who have contributed to "The Meaning of Marriage" have shown, few things are as important to the public weal -- and in our current circumstances almost nothing is more urgent -- than creating and maintaining a set of social conditions in which children being raised by their moms and dads is the norm.

Certainly religious communities and other institutions of civil society have an indispensable role to play, but law has a role to play, too. The law is a teacher.

It will teach either that marriage is a reality in which people can choose to participate, but whose contours people cannot make and remake at will -- e.g., a one-flesh communion of persons united in a form of life uniquely suitable to the generation, education and nurturing of children -- or the law will teach that marriage is a mere convention, which is malleable in such a way that individuals, couples, or, indeed, groups, can choose to make of it whatever suits their desires, interests or subjective goals, etc.

The result, given the biases of human sexual psychology, will be the development of practices and ideologies that truly tend to undermine the sound understanding and practice of marriage, together with the development of pathologies that tend to reinforce the very practices and ideologies that cause them.

Oxford University philosopher Joseph Raz, himself a liberal who does not share my views regarding sexual morality, is rightly critical of forms of liberalism which suppose that law and government can and should be neutral with respect to competing conceptions of moral goodness.

In this regard, he has noted that: "Monogamy, assuming that it is the only valuable form of marriage, cannot be practiced by an individual. It requires a culture which recognizes it, and which supports it through the public's attitude and through its formal institutions."

Of course, Professor Raz does not suppose that, in a culture whose law and public policy do not support monogamy, a man who happens to believe in it somehow will be unable to restrict himself to having one wife or will be required or pressured into taking additional wives.

His point, rather, is that even if monogamy is a key element in a sound understanding of marriage, large numbers of people will fail to understand that or why that is the case -- and therefore will fail to grasp the value of monogamy and the intelligible point of practicing it -- unless they are assisted by a culture that supports, formally by law and policy, as well as by informal means, monogamous marriage.

What is true of monogamy is equally true of the other elements of a sound understanding of marriage.

In short, marriage is the kind of good that can be chosen and meaningfully participated in only by people who have a sound basic understanding of it and choose it with that understanding in mind; yet people's ability to understand it, and thus to choose it, depends crucially on institutions and cultural understandings that both transcend individual choice and are constituted by a vast number of individual choices.

Wednesday Liturgy: Prostration and Vestments on Good Friday

ROME, MARCH 21, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Q: I have a question concerning the liturgy of Good Friday. The sacramentary in use in the United States directs: "The priest and the deacon, wearing red vestments, go to the altar. There they make a reverence and prostrate themselves, or they may kneel" (Sacramentary, rev. 1985). 'Paschales Solemnitatis,' the Circular Letter Concerning the Preparation and Celebration of the Easter Feasts (Congregation for Divine Worship, 1988) directs "The priest and ministers make a reverence to the altar prostrating themselves. This act of prostration, which is proper to the rite of the day, should be strictly observed, for it signifies both the abasement of 'earthly man,' and also the grief and sorrow of the Church." These two directives seem to be contradictory to me. Do you find them contradictory? And, if so, which would take precedence? -- M.E., New York.

Why is a chasuble prescribed instead of a cope for Good Friday? -- J.C., Rochester, New York

A: The above mentioned circular letter itself clarifies the question of precedence in No. 5 of the document:

"[T]he Congregation for Divine Worship, after due consideration, thinks that it is a fitting moment to recall certain elements, doctrinal and pastoral, and various norms which have already been published concerning Holy Week. All those details which are given in the liturgical books concerning Lent, Holy Week, the Easter Triduum and paschal time retain their full force, unless otherwise stated in this document.

"It is the aim of this document that the great mystery of our redemption be celebrated in the best possible way so that the faithful may participate in it with ever greater spiritual advantage."

At first appearance there appears to be a contradiction as one document gives the option of kneeling while the other mentions only prostration.

The rubric in the new Latin Missal (2002), however, retains the option of kneeling albeit "pro opportunitate."

I would say, therefore, that rather than contradicting the Missal the circular letter wishes to stress that the two possibilities are not equal and that, from the liturgical and symbolic point of view, the preferred posture at this moment is prostration.

The option of kneeling is wisely retained as no small number of priests might find prostration to be a somewhat arduous or even hazardous task. In some cases the efforts required at getting down, and getting up again could be ungainly and distract from the overall somberness of the occasion.

With respect to the use of the chasuble: The liturgy for Good Friday prior to the reform of the Roman Missal prescribed a complex series of rites and changes of vesture.

The priest wore an alb and black stole for the entrance, prayers and Passion. He assumed a black cope for the universal prayers but left the cope aside for the Adoration of the Cross. At the time of Holy Communion he substituted the black stole for a violet one and donned a violet chasuble in order to distribute Communion.

When the rite was reformed the color red was preferred to the use of black and violet. And the rite was simplified with the use of only one kind of vestment, the chasuble, throughout the celebration. The priest removes the chasuble (and may also remove his shoes) only while kneeling to adore the Cross.

The chasuble was probably preferred to the cope as a more suitable vestment for the distribution of Communion and perhaps also for practical purposes as many poor parishes would find it difficult to purchase a red cope to be used perhaps once or twice a year.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: More on Reserving the Precious Blood

ROME, MARCH 21, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara,
professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

There were numerous comments to our piece on reserving the Precious Blood (March 7).

Some hospital chaplains said that my suggestion -- that ideally the priest would be able to celebrate at the house or hospital -- was impractical.

Of course, my suggestion supposes optimal conditions, which rarely occur in real life. Nevertheless, this does not detract from the fact that this would be the best possible solution.

Another chaplain proposed that my conclusion, that "'it is not correct to reserve the Precious Blood,' does not fully reflect the nuance you had noted from Canon 925 and the Rites of Anointing and Viaticum." He also states: "Viaticum is, of course, the proper sacrament for the dying; but our practice has denied this, making the anointing of the sick into the sacrament for the dying."

He and some other chaplains explain that they do often reserve the Precious Blood in order to be prepared for emergency situations such as late night calls when the celebration of Mass is impossible.

The 1967 instruction "Eucaristicum Mysterium," which forms the basis for the rubrics of the rite of viaticum, indicated the following in No. 41 under the heading, "Communion under the Species of Wine Alone":

"In case of necessity, depending on the judgment of the bishop, it is permitted to give the Eucharist under the species of wine alone to those who are unable to receive it under the species of bread. [Since 1972 the judgment of the local bishop in each case is no longer required.]

"In this case it is permissible, with the consent of the local Ordinary, to celebrate Mass in the house of the sick person.

"If, however, Mass is not celebrated in the presence of the sick person, the Blood of the Lord should be kept in a properly covered chalice and placed in the tabernacle after Mass. It should be taken to the sick person only if contained in a vessel which is closed in such a way as to eliminate all danger of spilling. When the sacrament is administered, that method should be chosen from the ones given in the Rites for Distribution of Communion under Both Kinds which is most suited to the case. When Communion has been given, should some of the precious Blood still remain, it should be consumed by the minister; he will also carry out the usual ablutions."

Thus, while these priests show authentic zeal and spirit of self-sacrifice, as well as a deep desire to facilitate Communion to as many sick and dying people as possible, I think that the norms permitting a temporary reservation of the Precious Blood clearly imply a specific and concrete personal need.

Thus, I do not believe that the present norms permit the habitual reservation of the Sanguis in order to be ready for an emergency situation.

At the same time, advances in medicine have probably greatly increased the number of people who survive for quite some time in conditions where they could only be able to receive Communion under the species of wine.

In hospitals where their number is significant, and where, due to circumstances, either the priest cannot celebrate daily or else cannot administer Communion to all those needing it in a reasonable time, then the above norm would probably permit reserving the Precious Blood overnight or for a few days.

Since such pastoral situations are likely to augment, it would be desirable that either the Holy See or bishops' conferences propose specific norms as to the mode of reservation and administration so as to avoid any danger of profanation or lack of respect.

A very different situation was brought to light by several readers who reported that several parishes reserve the Precious Blood on Holy Thursday.

One wrote: "I have been in several churches which do display the Precious Blood on Holy Thursday evening for adoration along with the consecrated hosts. Is it sinful for me to thus adore the Precious Blood that is displayed in this way?"

As we mentioned, except for medical emergencies, it is not permitted to reserve the Precious Blood -- and Holy Thursday is no exception.

In line with long-standing tradition, when Communion is given (and until about 50 years ago it was not given) on Good Friday, it is distributed under the species of bread alone.

Besides, the manner of reservation described by our correspondent compounds the error because, for all practical purposes, we have an exposition of the Blessed Sacrament which is expressly forbidden on Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

While one could hardly be described as sinning by adoring the Lord, it would be worthwhile for our correspondent to express his doubts to the parish priest and if necessary to the bishop.

Finally, a New York reader wrote describing a rather unusual occurrence: "Last Sunday the celebrant consecrated the wine in the glass pitcher. Not all of the Precious Blood was consumed during the Mass and so needed to be consumed during the purification of the vessels in the sacristy following Mass. Our associate told me that if we just added more unconsecrated wine to the Precious Blood existing in the pitcher, then the Precious Blood would now be more wine than Blood and we could use it at the next Mass. I told him I had never heard that. He assured me that it was taught at the seminary. I consumed Jesus anyway and told the associate I would write you. Please advise. I certainly do not want to challenge a priest but do not want to promulgate error."

Apart from the fact that the norms issued by both the Holy See and the U.S. bishops no longer allow wine to be consecrated in a flagon or pitcher, but in several chalices, I would say the following:

The priest is theologically correct in saying that the addition of excess unconsecrated wine would remove the Lord's real presence. (See our commentary in follow-ups on May 13 and July 5, 2005.)

To do so, however, is at the very least a grave lack of respect and, if done with full awareness of its gravity, more than likely an act of sacrilege.

The norms we quoted last time are very clear: All of the Precious Blood must be consumed as soon as Communion is over and before the end of Mass, and thus not left until the purification of the vessels after Mass.

Great care should be taken regarding the quantity so that no Precious Blood should be left over after Mass.

1st Lenten Sermon of Father Cantalamessa

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 17, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the Lenten sermon delivered today by Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa in the presence of Benedict XVI and officials of the Roman Curia. The Pontifical Household preacher delivered it in the Mater Redemptoris Chapel of the Apostolic Palace.

* * *

"And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly" (Luke 22:44)

Jesus in Gethsemane

1. Baptized in his death

In the Advent meditations, I tried to bring to light the need we have at present to rediscover the "kerygma," that is, that original core of the Christian message in the presence of which the act of faith in God normally flowers. This core, the passion and death of Christ, represents its essential element.

From the objective point of view, or the point of view of faith, it is the resurrection, not the death of Christ, which is the qualifying element: "It is no great thing to believe that Jesus has died," writes St. Augustine, "pagans and reprobates also believe this; all believe it. But what is really great is to believe that he has risen. The faith of Christians is the resurrection of Christ."[1] But from the subjective point of view or the point of view of life, the Passion, not the Resurrection, is the most important element for us. "Of the three things that constitute the most sacred triduum -- crucifixion, burial and resurrection of the Lord -- we," St. Augustine also wrote, "realize in the present life the meaning of the crucifixion, while we hold by faith and hope what burial and resurrection mean."[2]

It has been written that the Gospels are "accounts of the Passion preceded by a long Introduction" (M. Kahler). But sadly the latter, which is the most important part of the Gospels, is also the least appreciated in the course of the liturgical year, as it is read only once a year, in Holy Week, when, because of the duration of the rites, it is moreover impossible to pause to comment and explain it. There was a time when preaching on the Passion occupied a place of honor in all popular missions. Today, when these occasions have become rare, many Christians reach the end of their lives without ever having experienced Calvary.

With our Lenten reflections we intend to fill, at least in some measure, this lacuna. We need to remain a while with Jesus in Gethsemane and on Calvary in order to be prepared for Easter. It is written that there was a miraculous pool in Jerusalem and that the first to plunge into it, when its waters were stirred, was cured. We must now throw ourselves, in spirit, into this pool, or into this ocean, which is the passion of Christ.

In baptism, we have been "baptized in his death," "buried with him" (Romans 6:3 ff.): That which happened once mystically in the sacrament, must be realized existentially in life. We must give ourselves a salutary bath in the Passion to be renewed, reinvigorated and transformed by it. "I buried myself in the passion of Christ, wrote Blessed Angela of Foligno, and I was given the hope that in it I would find my liberation."[3]

2. Gethsemane, a historical fact

Our journey through the Passion begins, as that of Jesus, from Gethsemane. Jesus' agony in the Garden of Olives is a fact affirmed in the Gospels on four foundations, that is, by the four evangelists. John, in fact, also speaks of it, in his own way, when he puts on Jesus' lips the words: "Now is my soul troubled (which remind us of the "my soul is sad" of the synoptic Gospels) and the words: "Father, save me from this hour!" (which reminds us of the "remove this cup from me" of the synoptic Gospels (John 12:27 ff.). There is also an echo of it, as we shall see, in the Letter to the Hebrews.

It is something altogether extraordinary that an event so minutely "apologetic" should have found such an outstanding place in tradition. Only one historical event, strongly affirmed, explains the relevance given to this moment of the life of Jesus. Each one of the evangelists gave the episode a different hue according to his own sensitivity and the needs of the community to which they wrote. But they did not add anything truly "foreign" to the event; rather each one brought to life some of the infinite spiritual implications of the event. They did not do, as we say today, "eis-egesis," but "ex-egesis."

Those which, according to the letter, are reciprocally contrasting and exclusive affirmations in the Gospels, are not so according to the Spirit. If an external and material coherence is absent, a profound concord, instead, is not lacking. The Gospels are four branches of a tree, separated on the top, but united in the trunk (the common oral tradition of the Church) and, through it, in the root, which is the historical Jesus. The inability of many scholars of the Bible to see things in this light depends, in my judgment, on ignorance in regard to what happens in spiritual and mystical phenomena. They are two worlds governed by different laws. It is as if someone wanted to explore the heavenly bodies with the instruments of submarine exploration.

An eminent Catholic exegete, Raymond Brown, who was able to combine scientific rigor and spiritual sensitivity in an exemplary way in the study of the Bible, summarizes as follows the content of the initial episode of the Passion: "Jesus who separates himself from the disciples, the agony of his soul when praying that the cup be removed from him, the loving response of the Father who sends an angel to support him, the solitude of the master who three times finds his disciples asleep instead of praying with him, the courage expressed in the final resolution to go out to meet the traitor: Taken from the different Gospels, this combination of human pain, divine support and solitary self-giving has contributed much to make believers in Christ love him, becoming the object of the art of meditation."[4]

The original core around which the whole scene of Gethsemane developed seems to have been that of the prayer of Jesus. The memory of the struggle of Jesus in prayer in face of the imminence of his Passion, finds its roots in a very ancient tradition, on which Mark, as well as the other sources, depend [5], and it is in this aspect on which we wish to reflect in the present meditation.

The gestures he makes are those of a person who struggles in mortal anguish: "He fell on the ground," he rises to go where his disciples are, he kneels again, then rises again … he sweats drops of blood (Luke 22:44). From his lips comes the supplication: "Abba, Father! All things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me" (Mark 14:36). The "violence" of the prayer of Jesus in the imminence of his death is highlighted above all in the Letter to the Hebrews, which states that Christ "[i]n the days of his flesh, offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death" (Hebrews 5:7).

Jesus is alone, before the perspective of a great suffering that is about to befall him. The awaited and feared "hour" of the final combat with the forces of evil, of the great test (peirasmos), has arrived. But the cause of his agony is even more profound: He feels himself burdened with all the evil and indignities of the world. He has not committed this evil, but it is the same, because he has freely assumed it: "He bore our sins in his body" (1 Peter 2:24), that is (according to the meaning this word has in the Bible), in his own person, soul, body and heart at the same time. Jesus is the man "made to be sin," says St. Paul (2 Corinthians 5:21).

3. Two different ways of struggling with God

To remove every pretext of the Arian heresy, some ancient Fathers explained the episode of Gethsemane in a pedagogical vein with the idea of "concession" (dispensation): Jesus did not really experience anguish and dread; he only wanted to teach us with prayer how to overcome our human resistances. In Gethsemane, writes St. Hilary of Poitiers, "Christ is not sad for himself, and does not pray for himself, but for those whom he advises to pray with attention, so that the chalice of the Passion will not befall them" [6].

After Chalcedon and, especially, after surmounting the Monothelite heresy, the need is no longer felt to take recourse to this explanation. Jesus in Gethsemane does not pray only to exhort us to do so. He prays because, being true man, 'in everything like us, except sin,' he experiences our own struggle in the face of what human nature loathes [7].

But, although Gethsemane is not explained only with a pedagogic intention, it is true that such a concern was present in the mind of the evangelists who transmitted the episode to us, and it is important for us to take it up. In the Gospels, the account of an event cannot be separated from the call to imitation. "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps," says the letter of Peter (1 Peter 2:21).

The word "agony" said of Jesus in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44) must be understood in the original sense of struggle, more than in the present one of agony. The time comes when prayer becomes combat, effort, agony. I am not speaking, at this moment, of the struggle against distractions, namely, the struggle with ourselves. I am speaking of the struggle with God. This occurs when God asks us to do something that our nature is not ready to give him, and when God's action becomes incomprehensible and disconcerting.

The Bible presents another case of struggle with God in prayer and it is very instructive to compare the two episodes. It is Jacob's struggle with God (Genesis 32:23-33). The setting is also very similar. Jacob's struggle takes place at night, on the other side of a ford -- that of Yabboq -- and, similarly, Jesus' takes place at night, on the other side of the torrent of Kidron. Jacob leaves behind his slaves, wives and children, to remain alone; Jesus also moves away from his last three disciples to pray.

But why does Jacob struggle with God? Here is the great lesson we must learn. "I will not let you go," he says, "until you have blessed me," that is, until you do what I have asked you. He even asks: "Tell me your name." He is convinced that, using the power given by knowing God's name, he will be able to prevail over his brother Laban, who follows him. God blesses him, but does not reveal his name to him.

Jacob struggles therefore to bend God's will to his. Jesus struggles to bend his human will to God's. He struggles because "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Mark 14:38). Spontaneously we wonder: Who are we like when we pray in difficult situations? Are we like Jacob if, like the man of the Old Testament when, in prayer, we struggle to induce God to change his decision, more than to change ourselves and accept his will; so that he will remove that cross, rather than to be able to carry it with him. We are like Jesus if, even amid groans and the flesh sweating blood, we seek to abandon ourselves to the will of the Father. The results of the two prayers are very different. God does not give his name to Jacob, but he gives Jesus the name which is above every name (Philippians 2:11).

At times, persevering in this kind of prayer, something strange happens that it is good for us to know in order to not miss out on a valuable moment. The roles are inverted. God becomes the one who prays and one becomes him to whom one prays. We begin to pray to ask God for something and, once in prayer, we realize little by little that it is He, God, who stretches his hand to us asking us for something. We have gone to ask him to take away that thorn of the flesh, that cross, that trial; that he free us from that function, that situation, the closeness of that person … and behold, God asks us in fact to accept that cross, that situation, that function, that person.

A poem of Tagore helps us to understand what it is about. It is a beggar who speaks and recounts his experience. It goes more or less like this: I had been begging from door to door on the streets of the city, when in the distance a golden carriage appeared. It was that of the King's son. I thought: This is the occasion of my life; and I sat down opening wide my sack, hoping to receive alms without even having to ask for them; beyond that, that riches rain down to the ground around me. But what was my surprise when, reaching me, the carriage halted, the King's son got down and stretching out his hand said to me: "Can you give me something? What a gesture of your royalty, to stretch out your hand!" … Confused and uncertain I took out a grain of rice from my sack, only one, the smallest, and gave it to him. But what sadness when, in the afternoon, searching in my sack, I found a grain of gold, only one, the smallest. I wept bitterly for not having had the courage to give all."[8]

The most sublime case of this inversion of roles is precisely the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane. He prays that the Father remove the cup from him, and the Father asks him to drink it for the salvation of the world. Jesus gives not one, but all the drops of his blood, and the Father compensates him, constituting him Lord, also as man, so that "just one drop of that blood is enough to save the whole world" (una stilla salvum facere totum mundum quit ab omni scelere).

4. "Being in agony, he prayed more earnestly"

These words were written by the evangelist Luke (22:44), with a clear pastoral intention: To show the Church of his time, subjected already to situations of struggle and persecution, what the master taught in such hardships.

Human life is strewn with many little nights of Gethsemane. The causes can be very numerous and different: a threat to our health, a lack of appreciation of the environment, the indifference of someone close to us, the fear of the consequences of some error committed. But there can be more profound causes: the loss of the meaning of God, the overwhelming awareness of one's sin and unworthiness, the impression of having lost the faith. In short, what the saints have called "the dark night of the soul."

Jesus teaches the first thing to be done in these cases: to turn to God in prayer. We must not deceive ourselves: It is true that Jesus in Gethsemane also sought the company of his friends, but, why did he seek it? Not so that they would say good words to him, to be distracted or consoled. He asks that they support him in prayer, that they pray with him: "So you could not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray" (Matthew 26:40).

It is important to observe how the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane begins, in the oldest source, which is Mark: "Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee" (Mark 14:36). The philosopher Kierkegaard makes illuminating reflections in this respect. He says: "The decisive question is that for God all things are possible." Man falls into real despair only when he no longer has before him any possibility, any task; when, as one says, there is nothing to do.

"When one faints," continues Kierkegaard, "one goes in search of smelling salts; but when one despairs, one must say: 'Find an opportunity; find him an opportunity!' The opportunity is the only remedy; give him an opportunity and the one in despair regains his appetite, is reanimated, because if man remains without an opportunity, it is as if he was lacking air. Sometimes the inventiveness of human imagination can suffice to find an opportunity, but in the end, when it is a question of believing, only this serves: that for God all things are possible."[9]

This possibility, always within reach for a believer, is prayer: "to pray is like breathing."[10] And if one has already prayed without success? Pray again! Pray "prolixius," with greater earnestness. One might object that, however, Jesus was not heard, but the Letter to the Hebrews says exactly the opposite: "He was heard because of his piety." Luke expresses this interior help that Jesus received from the Father with the detail of the angel: "And there an angel appeared to him from heaven, who comforted him" (Luke 22:43). But it was a "prolepsis," an anticipation. The Father's great help was the resurrection.

God, St. Augustine observed, hears even when he does not hear, that is, when we do not get what we ask for. His delay in responding is also him listening, so that he can give to us more than we asked for.[11] If despite everything we continue praying, it is a sign that he is giving us his grace. If Jesus, at the end of the scene pronounces his resolute: "Rise, let us be going" (Matthew 26:46), it is because the Father has given him more than "twelve legions of angels" to defend him. "He has inspired him," St. Thomas says, "with the will to suffer for us, infusing love in him."[12]

The capacity to pray is our great resource. Many Christians, including truly committed ones, experience their powerlessness in face of temptations and the impossibility to adapt themselves to the very high exigencies of Gospel morality, and sometimes conclude that they can't, and that it is impossible, to fully live the Christian life.

In a certain sense, they are right. It is impossible, in fact, on their own, to avoid sin; grace is needed; but in addition -- we are taught -- grace is free and cannot be merited. What should we do then: despair, surrender? The Council of Trent says: "God, giving you the grace, commands you to do what you can and to pray for what you cannot."[13]

The difference between the law and grace consists precisely in this: In the law, God says to man: "Do what I command you!"; in grace, man says to God: "Give me what you command me!" The law commands, and grace demands. Once he discovered this secret, St. Augustine, who until then had struggled in vain to be chaste, changed his methods; rather than struggling with his body he began to struggle with God. He said: "O God, you command me to be chaste; well then, give me what you command and command me what you will!"[14] And we know he obtained chastity!

Jesus gave his disciples ahead of time the means and words to unite themselves to him in trials -- the Our Father. There is no state of soul that is not reflected in the Our Father and that does not find in him the possibility of being translated into prayer: joy, praise, adoration, thanksgiving, repentance. But the Our Father is above all the prayer of the hour of trial. There is an obvious similarity between the prayer that Jesus left to his disciples and the one he himself raised to the Father in Gethsemane. In fact, he left us his prayer.

The prayer of Jesus begins as the Our Father, with the cry: "Abba, Father!" (Mark 14:36), or "My Father" (Matthew 26:39); he continues, as the Our Father, asking that his will be done; he asks that this chalice be removed from him, as in the Our Father we ask to be "delivered from evil"; he asks his disciples to pray so as not to fall into temptation and makes us end the Our Father with the words: "Lead us not into temptation."

What consolation in the hour of trial and darkness, to know that the Holy Spirit continues in us the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane, that the "unspeakable groans" with which the Spirit intercedes for us, in those moments, reach the Father mixed with the "prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears" which the Son raised to Him when "his hour" was upon him! (Hebrews 5:7).

5. In agony until the end of the world

We must take up one last teaching before taking leave of the Jesus of Gethsemane. St. Leo the Great says that "the Passion is prolonged until the end of time."[15] He is echoed by the philosopher Pascal in the famous meditation on the agony of Jesus:

"Christ will be in agony until the end of the world. During this time, we must not sleep.

"I was thinking of you in my agony: Those drops of blood I shed for you.

"Do you always want to cost me the blood of my humanity, without you shedding a tear?

"I am more of a friend to you than this or that one, because I have done more for you than they, and they would never suffer what I have suffered for you, they would never die for you in the moment of your infidelity and cruelties, as I have done and am willing to do in my chosen ones and in the Holy Sacrament."[16]

All this is not simply a way of speaking or a psychological constriction; it corresponds mysteriously to the truth. In the Spirit, Jesus is also now in Gethsemane, in the praetorium, on the cross. And not only in his Mystical Body -- in which he suffers, is apprehended or killed, but, in a way that we cannot explain, also in his person. This is true not "despite" his resurrection, but precisely "because" of the resurrection which has made the Crucified One "alive in the centuries." Revelation presents to us the Lamb in heaven "standing," that is, risen and alive, but with the signs of his immolation still visible (Revelation 5:6).

The privileged place where we can find this Jesus "in agony until the end of the world" is the Eucharist. Jesus instituted it immediately before going to the Garden of Olives so that his disciples would be able, in every age, to make themselves "contemporary" with his Passion. If the Spirit inspires in us the desire to be one hour at the side of Jesus in Gethsemane this Lent, the simplest way to achieve it is to spend, on Thursday afternoon, one hour before the Blessed Sacrament.

Obviously, this must not make us forget the other way in which Christ "is in agony until the end of the world," that is, in the members of his Mystical Body. More than that, if we wish to give solidity to our sentiments toward him, the obligatory way is precisely to do something for someone else that which we cannot do for him who is in glory.

The word Gethsemane has become a symbol of all moral pain. Jesus has not yet suffered in his flesh, his pain is altogether interior, and yet he only sweat drops of blood here, when it is his heart, and not yet his flesh, which is crushed. The world is very sensitive to bodily pains, it is easily moved by them; it is much less so in face of moral pains, which at times it even derides, interpreting them as hypersensitivity, autosuggestions and whims.

God takes the pain of the heart seriously and we should too. I think of those who have had their strongest bond in life broken and find themselves alone -- more often women; those who are betrayed in their affection, are anguished in face of something that threatens their lives or a loved one; in whom, unjustly or rightly -- there is not much difference from this point of view -- see themselves pointed out, from one day to the next, for public derision. How many hidden Gethsemanes there are in the world, perhaps under our own roof, next door, or in the next work desk! It is our task to single out someone this Lent and come close to the one who is there.

May Jesus not have to say among these, his members: "I look for compassion, but there was none, for comforters, but found none" (Psalm 68[69]:21). On the contrary, let it be that he is able to make us feel in our hearts the word that compensates all: "You did it to me."

--- --- ---
[1] St. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 120, 6: CCL 40, p. 1791.

[2] St. Augustine, Cartas, 55, 14, 24 (CSEL 34,2, p. 195).

[3] Il libro della B. Angela da Foligno, Quaracchi, Grottaferrata 1985, p. 148.

[4] R. E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah. From Gethsemane to the Grave. A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels, I, Doubleday, New York, 1994, p. 216.

[5] Brown, p. 233.

[6] Cfr. St. Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate, X, 37.

[7] Cfr. St. Maximus Confessor, In Mattheum 26,39 (PG 91, 68).

[8] Tagore, Gitanjali, 50 (trad. ital. Newton Compton, Roma 1985, p. 91).

[9] S. Kierkegaard, "La Malattia Mortale," Part I, C, in "Opere," edited by C. Fabro, pp. 639 ff.

[10] Ibid., p. 640

[11] St. Augustine, "On the First Letter of John," 6, 6-8 (PL 35, 2023 ff.).

[12] St. Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Theologiae," III, q. 47, a. 3.

[13] Denzinger-Schonmetzer, "Enchiridion Symbolorum," No. 1536.

[14] St. Augustine, "Confessions," X, 29.

[15] St. Leo the Great, "Sermo," 70, 5: PL 54, 383.

[16] B. Pascal, "Pensées," n. 553 Br.

Wednesday Liturgy: Why No Chicken on Days of Abstinence

ROME, MARCH 14, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Q: An inquirer in our parish RCIA program asked why chicken could not be substituted for fish during Lenten days of abstinence. Can you explain the reasons for the preference for fish for the days of abstinence? -- T.W., Garberville, California

A: In the tradition of the Church, laws relating to fasting are principally intended to define what pertains to the quantity of food allowed on days of fasting, while those regulating abstinence refer to their quality.

The law of the fast means that only one full meal may be taken during the day while two light meals are permitted in accord with local custom as to the amount and kind of food.

While the consumption of solid food between meals is forbidden, liquids, including tea, coffee and juices, may be taken at any time.

The law of abstinence prohibits eating the flesh, marrow and blood products of such animals and birds as constitute flesh meat.

In earlier times the law of abstinence also forbade such foods that originated from such animals, such as milk, butter, cheese, eggs, lard and sauces made from animal fat. This restriction is no longer in force in the Roman rite.

Vegetables as well as fish and similar cold-blooded animals (frogs, clams, turtles, etc.) may be eaten. Amphibians are relegated to the category to which they bear most striking resemblance.

This distinction between cold- and warm-blooded animals is probably why chicken may not replace fish on days of abstinence.

This classification can scarcely preclude all doubt regarding the law of abstinence. But local usage and Church authorities usually provide a sufficient basis to resolve problematic questions.

Abstinence was technically stricter in former times. Yet, the actual observance of the law was, and is, confined to such circumstances as carry no insupportable burden.

This is why people who are sick, very poor or engaged in heavy labor (or who have difficulty in procuring fish) are not bound to observe the law so long as such conditions prevail.

Diversity in customs, climate and food prices also modified the law of abstinence.

For example, one indult dispensed people in the United States from abstinence from meat at their principal meal during Lent on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Another indult, issued Aug. 3, 1887, allowed the use of animal fat in preparing fish and vegetables at all meals and on all days. Similar indults were granted for other countries.

Although in past times penitential days and times requiring fast and/or abstinence were more abundant, present canon law (Canons 1250-1253) has somewhat reduced these days.

Canon 1250 states: "The penitential days and times in the universal church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent."

Canon 1251: "Abstinence from eating meat or some other food according to the prescripts of the conference of bishops is to be observed on every Friday of the year unless a Friday occurs on a day listed as a solemnity. Abstinence and fasting however are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday."

The bishops' conference may substitute abstinence from other foods for meat in those countries where eating meat is uncommon, or for some other just reason.

They also enjoy broad authority, in the light of Canon 1253, to "determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence as well as substitute other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety, in whole or in part for abstinence and fast."

In the United States, the bishops recommend abstinence on all Fridays of the year. Abstinence is obligatory on all Fridays of Lent.

Abstinence is obligatory after reaching the age of 14; fasting becomes obligatory from age 18 until midnight of one's 59th birthday.

Most Eastern rites, both Catholic and Orthodox, have more demanding laws of fasting and abstinence and retain the prohibition of milk and poultry products.

As described by one reader, the Byzantine tradition, for example, begins the great Lenten fast after "Forgiveness Vespers" on Cheesefare Sunday evening (the Sunday before our Ash Wednesday), with the anointing of the faithful with oil, not ashes.

"Cheesefare" refers to the "farewell" to dairy products in the diet of the faithful for the duration of the Holy Fast. The Sunday before that is Meatfare Sunday, indicating a farewell to meat in the diet.

This continues (as far as practicable for all who receive the Eucharist) throughout Lent. Holy Week is more stringent -- more of a fast than abstinence.

As well, daily celebration of the Eucharistic Liturgy is forbidden -- but the faithful receive the Eucharist at the special vesperlike Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts, which employs Eucharistic bread consecrated on the previous Sunday.

The motives for practicing abstinence are admirably expressed by St. Augustine in his Sermon on Prayer and Fasting: Abstinence purifies the soul, elevates the mind, subordinates the flesh to the spirit, begets a humble and contrite heart, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, extinguishes the fire of lust, and enkindles the true light of chastity.

This is summarized in the IV Preface of Lent: "Who by bodily fasting suppresses vice, ennobles the mind, grants virtue and rewards" (a literal translation, as the present official version bears little resemblance to the original).

In short, the Church mandates fast and abstinence in order to help free us from the chains of slavery to sin. Rather than an onerous obligation it is a cry of freedom from all that binds us to ourselves and to our passions.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Picking the Day Lent Begins

ROME, MARCH 14, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Several readers asked for clarifications regarding the start of the Lenten season (Feb. 28) while one or two apparently misunderstood the point I was making.

Some followed my statement that "Most of the Eastern Churches follow the same basic principles but often celebrate Easter on a date different from Catholics and other Western Christians …," by pointing out that "the 21 Eastern Churches do not have 'Ash Wednesday.' This is a peculiarity of the Western Church. Lent begins on the Monday before that event."

It is true that Eastern Churches begin Lent on the Monday before Ash Wednesday. My reference to the "same basic principles" regarded the system for calculating Easter Sunday, not the beginning of Lent.

Several other readers questioned the duration of the Lenten season.

One wrote: "It is clear that, with the liturgical reforms, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Thursday evening. The triduum is not a part of Lent; thus Lent extends for a total of 44 days. If you take out the Sundays, you're left with 38 days, not 40. (You'd have to extend Lent into the triduum, as in the former calendar, to make it 40.) The 1988 circular letter of the CDW [Congregation for Divine Worship], 'Preparing and Celebrating the Paschal Feasts,' says, 'The first Sunday of Lent marks the beginning of the annual Lenten observance' (No. 23). If the First Sunday of Lent is part of the 'Lenten observance' (indeed, its beginning) why not the other Sundays? In fact, to get to 40 penitential days you simply have to count Sundays (they are Sundays 'of' Lent, despite what you wrote). But you don't begin on Ash Wednesday, but on the First Sunday of Lent when the catechumens become the elect."

A few lines earlier than those quoted by our interlocutor the same circular letter states: "On the Wednesday before the first Sunday of Lent, the faithful receive the ashes, thus entering into the time established for the purification of their souls" (No. 21).

In No. 16 it also clarifies: "All Lenten observances should be of such a nature that they also witness to the life of the local Church and foster it. The Roman tradition of the 'stational' churches can be recommended as a model for gathering the faithful in one place. In this way the faithful can assemble in larger numbers, especially under the leadership of the bishop of the diocese, or at the tombs of the saints, or in the principal churches of the city or sanctuaries, or some place of pilgrimage which has a special significance for the diocese."

I think, therefore, that by saying that Lenten observances begin on the First Sunday of Lent, the document was making a practical pastoral suggestion and did not intend to establish a new beginning for Lent. Still, there is some solid historical evidence for the custom of counting the 40 days from the First Sunday of Lent.

The problem might be solved by distinguishing between the liturgical season of Lent and the 40 penitential days.

As our reader, and the missal, point out, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends when the Easter triduum begins with the evening Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday.

This season includes the Sundays of Lent and thus extends for a total of 44 days.

If however, we take into account the number of days when fasting and/or abstinence is either recommended or obligatory before Easter, then Good Friday and Holy Saturday are also included, but the Sundays are not. We are then left with 40 fast or penitential days between Ash Wednesday and the Easter Vigil.

The absence of fasting on Lenten Sundays does not mean that these days are devoid of all penitential meaning. The liturgy itself expresses this reality by use of violet, the absence of flowers, the omission of the Alleluia and Gloria, and the overall tone of the liturgical texts.

As we saw earlier, the practice of Eastern Churches differs somewhat. Their period of abstinence and fast begins on the Monday preceding our Ash Wednesday and continues for 40 days straight. The following seven days are a special period that includes a more intense fast and other particular observations before Easter.

Focused Link: The Virtue of Fortitude

The typical hedonist today does not aspire to anything larger and higher, but settles for "feeling good". Such a life does not require fortitude.

The full article:
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/education/ed0283.html

Focused Link: Resenting Chastity

Virtue is not something simply lacking in the modern world. It is something many in the modern world actually resent.

The full article:
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/marriage/mf0073.html

Father Cantalamessa on Where Jesus Speaks

ROME, MARCH 10, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is the commentary by Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the Pontifical Household, on the Gospel passage for the upcoming Second Sunday of Lent.

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2nd Sunday of Lent
(Genesis 22:1-2,9a,10-13,15-18; Romans 8:31b-34; Mark 9:2-10)

Listen to Him!

"This is my beloved Son; listen to him." With these words, God the Father gave Jesus Christ to humanity as its sole and definitive Teacher, superior to the laws and the prophets.

Where is Jesus speaking today, so that we can hear him? He speaks to us above all through our conscience. It is a sort of "repeater," set within us, of the very voice of God. But conscience is not enough on its own. It is easy to make it say what we like to hear.

Thus it needs to be illuminated and supported by the Gospel and the teaching of the Church. The Gospel is the place par excellence in which Jesus speaks to us today. But we know by experience that the words of the Gospel can also be interpreted in different ways.

It is the Church, instituted by Christ precisely for this end, which assures us of an authentic interpretation: "He who hears you hears me." Because of this it is important that we endeavor to know the doctrine of the Church, to know it firsthand, as she herself understands and proposes it, not in the interpretation -- often distorted and reductive -- of the media.

Almost as important as knowing where Jesus is speaking today is to know where he does not speak.

Needless to say, he does not speak through wizards, fortunetellers, necromancers, horoscope orators, alleged extraterrestrial messages; he does not speak in spiritualistic sessions, in occultism.

In Scripture, we read this warning in this regard: "Let there not be found among you anyone who immolates his son or daughter in the fire, nor a fortuneteller, soothsayer, charmer, diviner, or caster of spells, nor one who consults ghosts and spirits or seeks oracles from the dead. Anyone who does such things is an abomination to the Lord" (Deuteronomy 18:10-12).

These were the pagans' typical ways of referring to the divine, who read the future by consulting the stars, or animals' entrails, or birds' flight. With that phrase of God -- "Listen to him!" -- all that came to an end. There is only one mediator between God and men; we are no longer obliged to move "blindly" to know the divine will, or to consult this or that source. In Christ we have all the answers.

Lamentably, today those pagan rites are again fashionable. As always, when true faith decreases, superstition increases. Let us take the most innocuous thing of all, the horoscope.

It can be said that there is no newspaper or radio station that does not offer daily its readers or hearers their horoscope. For mature persons, gifted with a minimum capacity for criticism and irony, it is no more than an innocuous joke, a kind of game or pastime.

Meanwhile, however, let us consider the long-term effects. What mentality is formed, especially in children and adolescents? A mentality according to which success in life does not depend on effort, diligence in studies and constancy in work, but of imponderable external factors; being able to acquire certain powers -- one's own or others' -- for one's own benefit.

Worse still: All this leads one to think that, in good and evil, the responsibility is not ours, but of the "stars," as Don Ferrante thought, of Manzonian memory.

I must allude to another realm in which Jesus does not speak and where, however, he is made to speak all the time: that of private revelations, heavenly messages, apparitions and voices of various kinds.

I do not say that Christ or the Virgin cannot also speak through these means. They have done so in the past and they can do so, of course, also today.

It is only that before taking for granted that it is Jesus or the Virgin, and not someone's sick imagination, or worse, of fraudsters who speculate with people's good faith, it is necessary to have guarantees.

In this area, it is necessary to wait for the judgment of the Church, and not precede it. Dante's words are still timely: "Christians, be firmer when you move: do not be like feathers in the wind."

St. John of the Cross said that ever since the Father said about Jesus on Tabor: "Listen to him!" God made himself, in a certain sense, dumb. He has said it all; he has nothing new to reveal.

Those who ask for new revelations or answers, offend him, as if he has yet to explain himself clearly. God continues to say to all the same word: "Listen to him, read the Gospel: You will find there, no more and no less, all that you seek."

[Translation by ZENIT]

Wednesday Liturgy: Reserving the Precious Blood

ROME, MARCH 7, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Q: Is it ever permissible to reserve the Precious Blood, for example, on Holy Thursday for distribution of Communion on Good Friday? If so, under what circumstances; if not, why not? I am unable to find any documentation in either canonical or liturgical law which would prohibit reservation of the Precious Blood. But I fall on the side of those who believe it is not permitted. -- J.K., Wilmington, Delaware

A: You are quite correct in assuming that the Precious Blood may not be reserved. There are several documents that show this.

First of all, Pope John Paul II's 1980 letter "Inestimabile Donum" makes this prohibition clear in No. 14:

"On the other hand, the consecrated wine is to be consumed immediately after Communion and may not be kept. Care must be taken to consecrate only the amount of wine needed for Communion."

There are also many other documents that state this point indirectly when they remind the priest to consume the Precious Blood after Communion. For example, "Redemptionis Sacramentum," No. 107, says:

"Furthermore all will remember that once the distribution of Holy Communion during the celebration of Mass has been completed, the prescriptions of the Roman Missal are to be observed [See GIRM 163, 249, 279, 284, 285a], and in particular, whatever may remain of the Blood of Christ must be entirely and immediately consumed by the Priest or by another minister, according to the norms, while the consecrated hosts that are left are to be consumed by the Priest at the altar or carried to the place for the reservation of the Eucharist."

A brief exception to this norm is, as indicated in Canon 925 and the Rites of Anointing and Viaticum, when Communion must be brought to the sick who are medically unable to consume under the form of bread. In the 1960s the Holy Office even granted permission to take the Precious Blood through a stomach tube.

In such cases it is preferable that the priest celebrate the Eucharist in the home or hospital of the sick person and bring the Precious Blood immediately. But if this is not possible he may bring it in a sealed vessel and pour it into a chalice for administration.

The reasons why the Church has never reserved the Precious Blood probably stem from a sense of respect for the Eucharistic Species and from practical consideration.

Since the species of wine can easily become corrupt, especially in hot climates, it would be disrespectful to risk having this happen. It is also more difficult to conserve in sufficient quantities, to transport and to administer.

It could be argued that custom plays a role and since, until recently, only the priest would receive under both kinds when he celebrated it was never necessary to reserve the Precious Blood. However, even those Eastern rites that have never abandoned the custom of Communion under both kinds do not generally reserve the Precious Blood.

Also, some of these rites do not celebrate daily Mass during Lent, and on Lenten Wednesdays and Fridays they celebrate a Communion rite with the "pre-sanctified" hosts from the previous Sunday. Although some of the prayers from this rite suggest that the chalice was once reserved along with the hosts, this has not been the case for many centuries.

There are still some traces of this practice of a-liturgical days in the West. The venerable Ambrosian rite of Milan in Italy neither celebrates Mass nor distributes Communion on Fridays of Lent.

Likewise we can easily forget that it was not until Pope Pius XII reformed the rites of Holy Week that Communion was distributed on Good Friday in the Roman rite.

Thus, from a canonical, historical and practical perspective, it is not correct to reserve the Precious Blood.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: General Absolution at a Nursing Home

ROME, MARCH 7, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Following our commentary on general absolution in a nursing home (Feb. 21) a reader asked if it were possible or wise to give general absolution to young people with special needs.

He writes: "The first question I have is: If these young people (or adults) have severe learning difficulties, can they sin if they do not know what sin is? And then if they can't sin they surely do not need absolution. The second question is (I would not think that just because they have special needs they qualify for general absolution): If they can sin, they must have some level of communication, however basic, and therefore a priest working with them should be able, with pastoral sensitivity, to give them some form of individual confession."

I am reminded of what Cardinal John Wright once said when it was suggested that first confession should be postponed until after first Communion so as to be carried out with fuller comprehension: "What is easier for kids to understand: transubstantiation, or saying, 'I'm sorry'?"

I am in broad agreement with our correspondent. If these people are in such a severe condition as to be considered on a par with infants, then evidently they are incapable of sin and the practice of general absolution serves no purpose.

It does not even seem to make much pastoral sense, since general absolution is not a magical rite. It implies that those who receive it are sufficiently literate in catechesis to grasp the necessary conditions, such as the requirement to confess individually before receiving another general absolution (unless in imminent danger of death).

If, on the other hand, they are capable of developing some notion of sin, as well as some notion of repentance and of the priest's being able to forgive sins, then some form of individual confession is to be preferred.

Besides the priest's absolution, the three acts of the penitent -- repentance, confession and acceptance of the satisfaction -- are essential to the validity of the sacrament, except in extraordinary circumstances such as when a person receives absolution in an unconscious state while in danger of death.

Father Cantalamessa on Creating "a Bit of Desert"

ROME, MARCH 3, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is the translation of a commentary by Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, Pontifical Household preacher, on the Gospel of the first Sunday of Lent.

* * *

First Sunday of Lent (cycle B)
(Genesis 9:8-15; Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:12-15)

With Jesus in the Desert

Let us concentrate on the first phrase of the Gospel: "The Spirit drove Jesus to the desert." It contains an important appeal at the beginning of Lent. Jesus had just received the messianic investiture in the Jordan, to take the Good News to the poor, heal afflicted hearts, preach the Kingdom. But he is not in haste to do any of these things. On the contrary, obeying an impulse of the Holy Spirit, he withdraws to the desert where he remains for 40 days, fasting, praying, meditating and struggling. All this in profound solitude and silence.

There have been in history legions of men and women who have chosen to imitate Jesus in his withdrawal to the desert. In the East, beginning with St. Anthony Abbot, they withdrew to the deserts of Egypt or Palestine; in the West, where there was no deserts of sand, they withdrew to solitary places, remote mountains and valleys.

But the invitation to follow Jesus in the desert is addressed to all. Monks and hermits chose a site in the desert; we must at least choose a time in the desert. To spend some time in the desert means to empty ourselves and be immersed in silence, rediscover the way of our heart, remove ourselves from the exterior racket and pressures to come into contact with the most profound sources of our being.

Well lived, Lent is a kind of cure of the poisoning of the soul. In fact, there is not only the contamination of carbon monoxide; there is also acoustic and luminous contamination. We are all somewhat inebriated with noise and externals. Man sends his waves to the periphery of the solar system, but in the majority of cases ignores what is in his own heart. To escape, to relax, to amuse oneself -- are words that mean to come out of oneself, to remove oneself from reality.

There are "escape" shows (the TV provides them in avalanche), "escape" literature. They are called, significantly, fiction. We prefer to live in fiction than in reality. Today there is much talk of "aliens," but aliens or alienated we already are by our own doing in our own planet, without the need of others coming from outside.

Young people are the most exposed to this inebriation with noise. "Let heavier work be laid upon the men that they may labor at it," Pharaoh said to his taskmasters, "and not listen to the words of Moses and not think of breaking out of slavery" (Exodus 5:9). Today's "Pharaohs" say, in a more tacit but no less peremptory way: "Increase the racket over these young people, so that they will be reckless and not think, not decide on their own, but follow the fashion, buy what we want them to buy, and consume the products we tell them to."

What can we do? Being unable to go to the desert, we must create a bit of desert within ourselves. In this regard, St. Francis of Assisi gives us a practical suggestion. "We have," he said, "a hermitage always with us; wherever we go and whenever we wish it we can enclose ourselves in it as hermits. The hermitage is our body and the soul is the hermit within!" We can go into this "portable" hermitage without being seen by anyone, even while we are traveling on a very crowded bus. It all consists in knowing how to "go into ourselves" every now and then.

May the Spirit that "drove Jesus to the desert" lead us also, help us in the struggle against evil and prepare us to celebrate Easter renewed in the spirit!

[Translation by ZENIT]

Wednesday Liturgy: Picking the Day Lent Begins

ROME, FEB. 28, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

* * *

Q: What determines what day Lent begins? P.R., Fresno, California

A: The short answer to your question is that the beginning of Lent depends on the date of Easter.

Easter follows a lunar, rather than a solar, calendar and is celebrated on the Sunday that follows the first full moon after March 21, the vernal (spring) equinox. Therefore Easter cannot fall earlier than March 22 or later than April 25.

All the other movable celebrations in the Church calendar ultimately depend on the date of Easter.

Most of the Eastern Churches follow the same basic principles but often celebrate Easter on a date different from Catholics and other Western Christians because they continue to follow the calendar of Julius Caesar without the corrections incorporated by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.

Julius Caesar's calendar calculated the year as 365 days and 6 hours and thus was about 11 minutes and 9 seconds more than the sun's actual course. Although tiny, this excess puts the calendar off by a day, more or less, every 128 years. Thus, the Council of Nicaea already found it necessary to regress the date of the spring equinox to March 21 instead of the original date of March 25.

By the time of Pope Gregory XIII the difference had grown so much that the spring equinox occurred on March 11.

In 1581 with the bull "Inter Gravissimas" Pope Gregory promulgated a widespread reform which, among other things, re-established the spring equinox on March 21 by eliminating 10 days from October 1582. Coincidence would have it that St. Teresa of Avila died on that very night of Oct. 4-15.

The error of Julius Caesar's calendar was corrected by deciding that the turn of the century --always a leap year in the Julian calendar -- would be so only when the year could be divided by 400, that is 1600, 2000 2400 2800, etc., whereas there would be no leap year in the others.

Most Catholic countries, and even some Protestant ones, accepted the reform almost immediately. Some countries, such as England, held off accepting the papal reform until 1752 while Russia did not adopt it until after the Communist takeover in 1918.

The calculation is still not perfect as there is still a difference of 24 seconds between the legal and the solar calendar. However, 3,500 years will have to pass before another day is added.

Getting back to Lent. This season comprises 40 days before Easter without counting Sundays which, even though they are called "Sundays of Lent," are not days of penance. Church tradition has always excluded fasting and penance on a Sunday.

The tradition of a fast in preparation for Easter goes back to the late third century but it varied in duration. The tradition of a 40-day fast was established in Rome between 354 and 384, although it began after the first Sunday.

As this period was also deemed suitable for the final preparation of candidates for baptism, the baptismal scrutinies were incorporated with the rites of this season. Scrutinies are communal prayers celebrated around the elect to strengthen them to overcome the power of sin in their lives and to grow in virtue.

Later, at the start of the sixth century, the beginning of Lent was moved up to Ash Wednesday in order to guarantee 40 days of effective fasting.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Polygamy, Sons and the Priesthood

ROME, FEB. 28, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Several correspondents wrote in reply to our Feb. 14 column about a man excluded from the seminary in Uganda because his father was involved in a polygamous marriage.

A Ugandan priest wrote: "In your treatment of the topic of polygamy, sons and priesthood, you rightly pointed out the nonexistence of impediments to sacred orders in current canon law, arising from the irregular condition of one's parents' marriage, unlike in the past. You also pointed out that even in the past, this impediment was not absolute. It was dependent on the particular situation of the particular candidate, considering factors such as the social stigma attached to illegitimate children and the negative effect on the pastoral effectiveness of such candidates as well as their personal and psychological balance.

"On the whole, however, your answer weighed toward the continued exclusion of such candidates today. Based on my lived experience in Uganda, I think we should be moving in the other direction, for the two main reasons you mentioned: the absence or rather the revocation of such an impediment by the legislator of universal canon law (cf. Canon 6) and the need for dealing with such situations on a case-by-case basis. Moreover, because of the widespread nature of irregular marriages among baptized Catholics even in Uganda, the social stigma attached to such families is no longer as great, nor does the situation have any notable effect on the pastoral effectiveness or personal balance of potential candidates. After all, the communal nature of raising children in African families ensures that there are always good examples of Christian marriage among other members of extended family."

Another priest, writing from Cameroon, made a similar point, although the concrete social situation in that country may differ somewhat from Uganda.

In my former piece I specifically mentioned that judging such situations from outside was very difficult and thus I tried to take a neutral stance.

Although I suggested a possible motivation for the exclusion of candidates, my intention was to explain and offer neither a defense nor a critique of the seminary superior's decision.

In this sense I agree with my Ugandan correspondent who quoted an address by Pope John Paul II to a group of American bishops asserting that diocesan guidelines for the administration of the sacraments should not be more restrictive than norms issued by the Holy See (L'Osservatore Romano, June 16, 1993).

He cited Canon 18 of the code: "Laws which establish a penalty, restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an exception from the law are subject to strict interpretation." It is also pertinent to this argument although, strictly speaking, nobody has a right to priestly ordination.

I further agree with the Ugandan correspondent that all questions regarding vocations should be decided on a case-by-case basis and not subject to a restrictive general law at the local level.

Another correspondent, from the United States, asked about impediment due to age.

He writes: "In the U.S. there is a constant call for men to the vocation of priesthood because of the shortage that is being seen. Why then, are some bishops putting age limits on those they will even consider for priesthood if that person has a call to that vocation? Instead they discourage them. Our diocese's vocation director says there is a need for more men to enter the priesthood but I know that at times he has discouraged men, even refusing to interview them. One young man eventually left for another diocese who accepted him with open arms and this young man will soon be ordained a priest for this other diocese. I myself was seeking to enter seminary studies after graduation from college with my degree in theology, with emphasis on pastoral ministry. I was allowed to take the pre-seminary evaluation and did well on it, but due to my age, my bishop said no, too old. At that time I was 53 years of age with a strong desire to serve God as one of his shepherds."

Many factors may be involved in vocational discernment or acceptance, and age plays a role.

That said, while canon law sets the minimum age for ordination at 25, there is no universal canonical maximum age and many recent vocations to the priesthood are from the ranks of older men.

There is even a seminary in Rome and at least one in the United States that specifically cater to such vocations as older men often find it difficult to fit into seminary programs designed for men in their early 20s.

Some religious congregations do have an upper age limit for admittance as experience has taught them that older people may be too set in their ways to adapt to the particular demands of certain forms of religious life.

I have no idea why this particular diocese would not wish to accept older vocations. The reasons probably concern the diocese's concrete pastoral situation, the makeup of faithful and the clergy, the seminary formators' experience (or lack thereof) in guiding older vocations, and many other factors that may have nothing to do with the candidate's actual worthiness.

If, for serious reasons, a diocese considers that it cannot undertake the formation of older vocations, it should be willing to recommend a worthwhile candidate to another diocese that has this need or possibility.