The Passion Week of Christ and the Passion Week for His Church

When my husband and I entered the Catholic Church, and our children followed, we entered amidst a flurry of controversy. 

First there was the priest abuse sex scandal. That was a difficult one to get past. We studied the problem, read the John Jay report, prayed about it and realized that the Body of Christ, the Church, was composed of the wheat and tares. [And I shall not even write what I believe should happen to those satanic tares when it comes to the abuse of innocent young men.]

Yet....

Jesus chose Judas. As horrifying as it is, we should prepare ourselves to have a few demons among the Apostles' successors--for the darkness is real, it is not fantasy. There really is a Devil who wants to destroy the church from without and within, and he patiently waits at the gates to get in.

Like the Apostles, one out of twelve traitors to the faith should not be surprising. That would make it

possible that the Catholic Church houses about 19 wolves for Cardinals, about 425 bishops that will sell out Christ, and more than 34,300 priests who will give their Master the kiss of betrayal. 

The reality is not near that bleak. The Catholic Church has very, very few demons in it. And they have finally awakened to the scandal and worked very hard to stop the crimes.

Our family was not expecting the church Christ began to be perfect. In fact, if we found a church with no tares, then it wouldn't fit Jesus' description of His kingdom. Since we entered though, there have been a barrage of new crisis and internal controversies. And usually it is between liberal and conservative Catholics. 

To kneel or not to kneel? 
To contracept or not to contracept? 
To veil or not to veil? 
Was Vatican II the fissure that let the smoke of Satan into the Temple of God or was that the Holy Spirit that came in? 
Novus Ordo or the Tridentine mass?
Should unfaithful Catholic politicians receive Holy Communion?
Should the remarried Catholics receive Holy Communion?

The media reports with excitement that the Church is about to embrace abortion, contraception, homosexuality, adultery! With the jovial Cardinal Dolan always tantalizing the media with expectation. Then Pope Francis adds his two-cents to the confusion. And then the upcoming Council on the Family that has the passengers on the Catholic Ark wondering if there is a captain at the helm of this rocking ship!

As frustrating as the lack of leadership has been, one thing has given me great peace. I once read that the Catholic Church, as the Body of Christ, will have a parallel experience as Christ did while on earth. Satan will put her through the wilderness and tempt her and she will go through her own Gethsemane sweating blood,  experiencing

betrayal of her closest friends. The Church will be scourged, stripped and crucified, but what did we expect when Jesus told us to take up our cross and follow Him? And finally we may feel the same abandonment that Christ felt and the Church may cry out, "why have you abandon us?" to our Father. And perhaps, many may be called to die for our faith. 

As we walk with Christ through the Passion Week, take a look at the long history of the church that God so loved. 

All Christ needed was twelve faithful bishops--and though they scattered, they returned and were martyred for Our Lord. God can use even one faithful bishop to turn the entire church around as He did with Athanasius during the Arian heresy. We know we got that covered: Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. And of course there are many, many more!

Yet, even if all the shepherds scatter, we will be prepared. For this is what they did to our Lord. Be not afraid.

We have two thousand years of His past faithfulness to His Beloved that we each can draw comfort from. And gaze into the eternity to come. 

As we contemplate the Good Friday and Holy Saturday, remember that each moment is redemptive suffering that every soul, each and every soul that can possibly be saved, will be found in heaven. 

Let us also feel the closeness of Easter Sunday. And let us never grow weary of praying that our beloved bishops have the courage to rise above even the Apostles themselves and walk with Christ's bride as she faces a hostile world. 

God bless you all. 

Vatican II and the Gregorian Chant

CONSTITUTION 

ON THE SACRED LITURGY  

SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM 

SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY 

HIS HOLINESS

POPE PAUL VI 

ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 

116. The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30.

What are some of the reasons Vatican II chose the Gregorian chant as having the pride of place?

__________________________

Before becoming Catholic, our family attended churches that were on fire for the Lord, especially in the music. With a Christian band on stage playing their hearts out--the beat of the drums--it was a total body praise to the Lord! Hundreds of us with our hand waving in the air and dancing in place--what a great experience. I looked forward each week to praise times before the sermon.  For myself, and I assume everyone else there, we were genuinely praising God with all our hearts and souls. 

So why does the Catholic Church--even post Vatican II--emphasize what so many people believe to be dull, lifeless music in church? Shouldn't the music inspire us and get us going? 

Well...no. For a Catholic, the music in church isn't about taste, preference, emotion...none of that. Catholic music isn't about making us feel inspired. That's kinda rough on someone going from a very charismatic church to Catholicism. Why isn't the service about filling me? I totally get that question from a Protestant perspective. Protestant services are about filling ourselves, getting inspiration to go out and preach the gospel each week. No criticism about that. 

But for a Catholic, the Holy Spirit fills us in a different way during church than Protestants. We consider our reception of the bread and wine as the way in which we receive the Holy Spirit. That is our "food" for the week. So we first give our offering to God through the worship of the liturgy. My gift to God is to worship Him during Catholic mass. That part is His. Although we, as we listen to the readings of the scripture and hear the sermon, are also gaining great spiritual insight. 

Then the second part, the communion, is when Catholics receive the Eucharist...the very body and blood of our Savior. That is my gift from God for attending mass. 

The exchange should be perfect. The perfect worship and communion of God and His Bride. The dance of love takes place spiritually rather than physically. And I can attest, that when your heart is with God at mass, it is a fiery dance that will bring you very close to the cross and heaven. That is why many Catholic saints have experienced what they call ecstasy at mass.

So what do Gregorian chants have to do with this? 

I read an introduction to the missal at the Prince of Peace Catholic Church in South Carolina that explained it. This is my version of what I read (editorialized for Catholics and Protestants):

As Christians, we believe the Bible is infallible, right? The Bible is the inspired Word of God and if we want to know what is right for the Christian, we go to the Bible. Absolutely. It is perfect,

infallible. 

Catholic sprinkle ourselves with holy water when we enter the church as a renewal of our baptism and we confess our sins, so that we ourselves will be holy and without sin during the mass. 

At Catholic mass we lift up to the Father the perfect, infallible sacrifice of the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. It is a perfect sacrifice. 

Within the context of a perfect sacrifice, our liturgy is perfect, for we read the infallible words of God. We worship perfectly when we lift up to God with infallible scripture!

The Gregorian Chant takes its lyrics from the Bible--no editing--just the words of scripture. So when we are worshipping a holy God, in holy mass, we should sing only the words that are perfect and infallible. After all, mass is prayer to God. 

The mass is about worshipping God the way He desires to be worshipped, not the way we want to worship Him. He wants perfect worship. 

Therefore, we lift up to Him: 
His Son as the one-time perfect sacrifice. 
His own perfect words as we read the scriptural liturgy. 
His perfect words in the sung liturgy. 

As thrilling as it is for Christian composers to write songs, psalms and hymns to our Lord, the wording is not infallible, nor perfect. Hymns of great Christians are good and we should sing them often, but they should not take primary position over the very words of God. Just as we don't read inspirational texts from Christians in mass because they are not the infallible words of God, Vatican II has given primary place to the Gregorian chant because it is not supposed to vary from the scripture in its lyrics. 

While that was not the complete explanation, I thought those were thoughts worthy of pondering. After all, mass isn't about what I like. I am not going there to give God what I want, but to worship Him in the way He chooses. And He tells us to be perfect. Mass is a foretaste of heaven. So, Mass is one place on earth where things can be perfect. 

 That is one of the reasons for singing the Words of God rather than the words of man.    

SEXUAL SINS

I really hate discussing this. My passion is the pro-life issue—not debating sexual sins. But I am extremely tired of watching Christians being bullied about their faith because they believe God placed prohibitions against or limits on human sexuality--specifically homosexual acts.

Since I am Catholic, I will write from that specific Christian perspective.

Sex is Not a Right

Catholicism doesn't pick on homosexuals any more than any other sexual sin. Catholics teach that humans do not have a right to sex. It's that simple. Sex is a gift from God and He doesn't give it to everyone at all times and it is not given without restriction.

Pornography (both written and visual), pedophilia, prostitution, bestiality, masturbation, oral sex (and other non pro-creative types of sex), contraception, in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, cloning, sterilization, vasectomy, premarital sex, adultery, divorce, lust, fetishes, cross dressing, gender changes, bigamy, polygamy, forced marriage, rape, incest…. all these things are grave sins. All of these things betray our Creator, steal the gift of sex from God and abuse it. These are hard standards for everyone, not just those who have same-sex attraction. 

The woman caught in adultery

Therefore the person who has same-sex attraction and falls to sexual temptation to act on it is the same in the eyes of the Church as the heterosexual person who falls to sexual temptation to act outside of God's gift.

Catholics are no more homophobic than contraceptophobic or polygamophobic, or pornographobic. It is ridiculous and ignorant to call those who follow Christ's commands for sex as exclusive to married men and women as haters or bigots. Remember that popes, cardinals, bishops, priests don't make the call about what is or what is not wrong, the Creator does. We don't get veto power on this anymore than we do about whether pedophilia is acceptable. There is no such thing as an "enlightenment" moment for those who obey Christ.

Everyone Has to Resist Sexual Temptation

Chivalry was often about loving a woman but remaining celibate.

But what if a man truly loves another man?

Restrictions on sex doesn't cut off love or respect or tolerance. No one is taking love away from anyone. Love can and must, in some cases, express itself without sex. Humans do it all the time. Just because a married man sincerely, completely falls in love with his secretary, that doesn't give him the right or the reason to have sex with her. That is outside the perimeters of what God created sex for. We all have to show control, even inside marriage.

Do Christians hunt down and persecute those who practice contraception? Those who are living together before marriage? Those who are having affairs or watching porn? Of course no one should do this. Christians aren't going to hurt souls who fall into sin any more than a REAL Christian would hunt down and persecute those with same-sex attraction. Don't confuse us with religions who kill homosexuals. Seriously.

What is difficult for those who are obedient to Christ who have great sympathy for people who  struggle against sexual temptations is to watch our culture try to promote same-sex marriage as normal. We also have had to struggle with sexual temptation, struggle almost to the point that feels like death, so we do understand, but we cannot then say just because it's hard, it's okay to fall to temptation.

Come Let Us Reason Together

My best friend is a pro-choice activist and we love each other and respect each other even if our existential, raison d'être for life is in direct opposition. I have family members who are atheists, we love each other and respect each other. Why is it that my pro-choice friend and my atheist family members can kindly and

frankly talk things out, giving our opinions and even passionately trying to convince each other why they should believe like the other does—but when it comes to homosexuality, we can't talk? Some people who disagree with your faith just get up and walk away and you are out of their life. 

Why is it that when it comes to the subject of same-sex attraction, all of a sudden I am demanded to concede without discussion or logic or reason? Why is my liberty to obey Christ all of a sudden equated with bigotry and hate? 

What I find extremely interesting is that my homosexual friends are far, far more understanding and respectful of my faith than the mean-spirited heterosexuals who try to shame me and bully me into changing my opinions. Very few of my homosexual friends and homosexual family members have shunned me, but I have been shunned and shamed by many of those who think they are standing up for my homosexual family and friends. 

While discussion will never change what sin is, what discussion can do is tone down the ugly rhetoric and give us understanding and even love for each other as we struggle through these topics. 

Reasoning together will bring us to compassion and a respect for each other.

From Whence We Get Our Doctrine

If you do not believe homosexuality to be a sin, I will not harass you, I will not shame you, I will not force you or anyone to believe or act as I am convicted to believe or act. But I will push back if I believe you are trying to silence Christians about the subject or force us to believe as you do or actively attempt to indoctrinate our children into your way of thinking. Just as I would push back if a group of activists try to silence Christians about the sin of pornography, or adultery or pedophilia.

This isn't about stubbornness, or intolerance, it's about being faithful even when we may not fully understand God's commandments. Those who promote homosexuality as just another normal lifestyle believe that if they present a good enough argument I will change my mind. I can't. They don't seem to understand, my opinion simply doesn't count here. 

Only God's does.

Christians don't get to be cool and relevant--or even liked. We can't "get with the times."

My commitment means that I follow Christ whether or not I understand why or even if I disagree and don't feel something to be immoral. This isn't even about Biblical interpretation for the Orthodox and Catholic church.

Christians who come from the most ancient churches, who go back to the beginning learned—not from scripture—but from Jesus and the Apostles themselves that sex was gifted to man for procreation between a man and woman, married and living together in a committed for life monogamous relationship. So even if someone were to come up with a good alternate interpretation of scripture, that would mean nothing to us. We heard this from the mouth of the Apostles, not from reading the Bible, although we believe scripture records and supports what Christ taught. 

Gay-Rights Bullies

No doubt the gay-rights bullies will celebrate for a season their success in silencing Christians. But this will only be temporary, because by definition Christians cannot ever go against their leader, Christ. You will never win over Christians hearts' about the sinfulness of sex outside God's definition of marriage. We are not being mean or ugly or intolerant. Christians are simply being humble and submitting to one who designed marriage. 

Eventually Christianity will tunnel its way out of the darkness of apathy it seems to be in and will rise to the surface and bloom. Because what God creates as marriage is marriage no matter what man tries to create. And He gave us marriage to reflect His very nature and to show us His unfathomable love. And nature will always find a way, because nature was created by God.