Treasures from our Tradition- 2008
Treasures from 2007
27 April
Some monks and nuns trace their community origins back a thousand years or so, before it became customary to reserve the Blessed Sacrament in tabernacles. In their rules of life, which evolved from the lifestyle and prayer of their predecessors, the core experience of Christ’s presence is at the altar itself, and in the symbol of assembly for prayer. To this day, when the monks or nuns file into their church in procession, they march two by two, and then bow profoundly to the altar before turning and bowing in reverence toward the brother or sister at their side. It is probably more difficult, in practice, to revere the presence of Christ in a person who irks you by taking the car keys, shirking a work duty, or burning the toast!
We can trace in these religious orders’ enduring customs the ancient appreciation for the altar as the center of the church building, and of the community of the faithful as the Body of Christ. Usually, a monastery today will reserve the Blessed Sacrament in some quiet corner of the monastic church, in a fairly small space, more suitable for private prayer than for the gathering of the whole community. In a cloister, the architecture may allow the public limited access to this space. Liturgical law tells us, in both monasteries and parish churches, that there is no need for more than a few hosts in the place of reservation, just enough for viaticum, the “food for the journey” that is the final sacramental celebration for a dying Christian.—Rev. James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.
20 April
The origins of the custom of burning a lamp before the tabernacle are in Jewish worship, where a lamp called ner tamid or “eternal flame” burns before the ark in every synagogue. The ark contains the sacred scrolls of the Torah. The flame represents the menorah in the Temple, and therefore is never extinguished. In fact, the word “tabernacle” itself is derived from Hebrew, as taber is the Hebrew word for “tent,” and hearkens back to the forty years of wandering in the desert. The pilgrim people were sustained in hope by an awareness that God was not only in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, but had quite literally “pitched his tent with them” in the shelter for the Ark of the Covenant. Some artisans have used this theme of “ark” or “tent” to design a tabernacle for the Blessed Sacrament.
In Christian practice, Anglicans and Catholics use a sanctuary lamp to point toward the presence of the reserved sacrament, and Lutherans use it as a sign of God’s presence in the house of worship, but not necessarily as a clue that the Eucharist is reserved. Why, even in an age of electric light, is the sanctuary lamp an oil light or candle? Perhaps not only to point to Christ, the light of the world, but also to point to sacrifice. For the light to exist, there must be sacrifice. The oil or wax is transformed into light, just as those who pray here, or who will receive viaticum from here, are called to transformation in Christ.—Rev. James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.
13 April
Not until the thirteenth century do we find a mention of a locked tabernacle. There’s some evidence for eucharistic towers also, but often these were in an obscure corner of the church, or even in the off-limits sacristy. Many of us grew up “making visits” to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, but it’s clear this would raise some medieval eyebrows in confusion!
To the present day, the Eucharist is always reserved only in a side chapel in many cathedrals. The principal focus in a cathedral is always on the altar, symbol of Christ, and on the cathedra, symbol of the pastoral ministry of the bishop.
In your parish church there is probably a “sanctuary lamp,” a permanently lit candle or oil lamp indicating the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Sometimes it’s in a red glass, not for any particular reason except that it’s easy to find. There is a story of a bishop missioned to Papua New Guinea who was distressed to find no sanctuary lamps burning in his new diocese. The people patiently explained that their churches were woven of grass, and that they decided to place a chief’s standard, a trident, in front of the tabernacle. That was a sign in their culture that the “chief” was at home, like raising the flag over Buckingham Palace. The bishop, an Irish import, didn’t appreciate the British reference, so he ordered the candles back. The first church to burn to the ground was the cathedral, and after two more, the chief’s tridents returned.—Rev. James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.
6 April
The church slowly developed customs of reserving some portion of the eucharistic sacrifice for the sake of the dying. Today’s custom of placing this portion in a tabernacle for prayer and adoration by the faithful cannot be traced back much beyond the year 1,000, much to almost everyone’s surprise. There is simply no historical evidence of the Blessed Sacrament being present in a church for the purpose of having the faithful visit it or pray before it earlier in the church’s history. People did visit, of course, but the center of their attention was the altar, symbol of Christ’s sacrifice and the touch point between heaven and earth. Shrines and devotional altars abounded in medieval churches, but anything we might describe as a Blessed Sacrament chapel would be hard to find.
Amazingly, the Eucharist was first kept in private houses for the purpose of Holy Communion at home. As for church, the custom gradually developed of suspending a vessel shaped like a dove somewhere in the church, often over the altar. In the hovering bird, a few hosts, enough to satisfy the pastoral needs of the dying, would be secreted. The priest would lower the dove on a pulley as needed, but it wasn’t a focus of devotion by visitors to the church. It was simply a way of reassuring bishops who were nervous about safeguarding the Eucharist. The dove solution caught on in England and France after Crusaders came in contact with the custom in their travels in the Orthodox East.
—Rev. James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.
30 March
Long ago, the custom of sending some pieces of consecrated bread from the Lord’s table began to take hold. Originally it was a way of assuring the sick and imprisoned of their bonds of faith and affection with the community from whom they were separated. By the third century, at least in Rome, we have evidence that the bishop would consign some of the sacred elements to presbyters or deacons.
There was a crisis in the unity of the church early on, called the quartodeciman controversy, since some people wanted to celebrate the Pasch on the fourteenth day (quartodecima) of the Jewish month Nissan, even if it didn’t fall on a Sunday. The debate so fractured the church that the historian of the era, Eusebius, reported a new development to the pope. He wrote that the churches holding to the Lord’s Day sent out consecrated bread to the disgruntled people of the quartodeciman pastors with whom they were quarreling. Meanwhile, bishops complained about people taking the Eucharist home. St. Cyprian told a cautionary tale of a sinful woman who tried to open the “casket” containing the consecrated bread in her home. She was deterred from receiving, he said, by flames erupting from the box. Clearly, he wanted people to think twice before bringing Communion home!
The Council of Nicaea defined the “old rule of the church” as allowing for reserving the eucharistic bread for the sake of the dying. The same council could foresee circumstances of persecution when people might have the Eucharist on hand to administer to one another in a time of great danger, literally, at the point of a sword. The first and enduring purpose for reserving the Eucharist is viaticum for the dying.
—Rev. James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.
23 March
Easter is a full two weeks earlier this year than last. Why does the date wobble around the calendar so? The way of calculating the date was set by the Emperor Constantine in 325. The decision ended a very bitter controversy in the church. Some people wanted to synchronize the Pasch with Passover on the fourteenth day of the Jewish month Nissan, and their opponents wanted it after the Passover was complete, on the Sunday after the first full moon of springtime. The ecclesiastical rules do not exactly connect with the astronomical rules. The emperor squashed the hopes of the quartodecimans, as the fans of 14 Nissan were called, and chose Sunday. The traditional rule is that Easter is the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after the vernal equinox, the fourteenth day of the new moon, and later than March 21. Thus, Easter wobbles between March 22 and April 25.
The actual tables and methods for computing the date are extraordinarily detailed, with subtle variations and mind-bending exceptions and charts with “golden numbers,” “dominical letters,” and “epacts” measuring leap years. In 1954 and 1962 the ecclesiastical calculations actually overrode the astronomical new moons and bumped Easter back a month! Today, there is a movement in the World Council of Churches (Protestants and Orthodox) for all Christians to combine their celebrations, based on the star charts for the Jerusalem skies. The last time all Christians celebrated together was at the dawn of the millennium in 2001. In principle, the Catholic Church is open to an ecumenical agreement on a fixed date for Easter, but we desire a unanimous decision from the World Council.—Rev. James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.
24 February
Not until the thirteenth century do we find a mention of a locked tabernacle. There’s some evidence for eucharistic towers also, but often these were in an obscure corner of the church, or even in the off-limits sacristy. Many of us grew up “making visits” to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, but it’s clear this would raise some medieval eyebrows in confusion! To the present day, the Eucharist is always reserved only in a side chapel in many cathedrals. The principal focus in a cathedral is always on the altar, symbol of Christ, and on the cathedra, symbol of the pastoral ministry of the bishop.
In your parish church there is probably a “sanctuary lamp,” a permanently lit candle or oil lamp indicating the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Sometimes it’s in a red glass, not for any particular reason except that it’s easy to find. There is a story of a bishop missioned to Papua New Guinea who was distressed to find no sanctuary lamps burning in his new diocese. The people patiently explained that their churches were woven of grass, and that they decided to place a chief’s standard, a trident, in front of the tabernacle. That was a sign in their culture that the “chief” was at home, like raising the flag over Buckingham Palace. The bishop, an Irish import, didn’t appreciate the British reference, so he ordered the candles back. The first church to burn to the ground was the cathedral, and after two more, the chief’s tridents returned.—Rev. James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.
6 January
The date we know as January 6 was established as the solstice in Egypt in 1996 BC, but the Egyptian calendar lost a full day every 128 years. Twenty centuries later the actual solstice had migrated to December 25. People still kept January 6 for the solstice celebration, but December 25, matching nicely with the Roman pagan feast of the Unconquered Sun, launched an extended solstice holiday. By the time of the early church, the whole period of twelve days was celebrated just about everywhere.
16 December 2007
Did St. Francis of Assisi invent the Christmas crib? Not exactly, but his devotion to the Incarnation and his love for the poverty of the Christ Child certainly popularized this beloved custom. Long before Francis, it was a custom at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome to enshrine a rich image of Mary, gilded and bejewelled, embracing the child Jesus. This church was founded as a kind of home for the feast of Christmas in the fourth century. In 1223, Francis was ready to celebrate this feast in a new way. In the tiny city of Greccio, he asked friends to prepare a place where they could experience the poverty and suffering embraced by Christ in his birth. It was a living scene: an ox from the barn, an ass from the stable, and peasants standing in for shepherds and kings. The night of the celebration was beautiful, the weather was warm, and people came in crowds, bearing candles and singing hymns that echoed through the forest. Francis himself chanted the Gospel and preached. The custom spread quickly, and by the sixteenth century cribs were seasonal features not only in church, but in the home.
On December 17, the liturgy begins to unfold the Lord’s birth before us, and it’s the right time to follow this beautiful tradition. In Germany, each night throughout Advent children prepare a bedding for the manger. At bedtime prayer, a child places a single straw in the manger for each act of devotion or virtue performed during the day. If the children are good, then the Christ child will have plenty of soft bedding when he is placed in the manger on Christmas.—Rev. James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.
2 December 2007
Before the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s, Advent had a strong penitential tone, reminiscent of Lent. From as long ago as the fourth century, some Christians began a solemn fast on St. Martin’s Day, November 11. This “Saint Martin’s Lent” extended all the way to Christmas, and was widely followed in the dioceses of France and Germany, and in the Middle Ages in England. Fasting was required, and dancing and similar activities were banned for the duration. The fast had a social function, too, assuring that the winter food supplies would stretch into spring.
At the Second Vatican Council, some bishops argued that a revival of the long winter’s fast would give the Church a chance to establish the message and themes of the Incarnation long before the holiday hubbub took hold. This proposal didn’t pass, and Advent emerged as a four-week period of reflection, expectant waiting, and joyful preparation for the coming of the Lord. The season has two principal phases, with the first beginning this Sunday. The second phase commences on December 17, when the liturgy begins to unfold the story of the Savior’s coming. Interestingly, the Eastern Church maintains a strongly penitential note in Advent, which is called “Winter Lent,” “The Nativity Fast,” or “Christmas Lent,” and has laws forbidding people to absent themselves from liturgy from December 17 onward. —Rev. James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co
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18 November 2007
With Thanksgiving approaching, we think of the quest of the Puritans who arrived on the Mayflower from their first exile in Leyden, Holland. Like the Catholics of England, they were religious dissenters who suffered penalties for not participating in the worship life of the established church. The Catholics established monasteries, schools, and convents on the continent to assure the vigor of their faith’s intellectual and spiritual life. The Puritans fled to the tolerant Netherlands with similar hopes of preserving their way of life, but were unable to adapt to Dutch ways.
There were Catholics who made a similar colonial journey. The hero of the story is George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, the former Secretary of State of Britain and a Catholic. He proposed that King Charles I establish a proprietary colony that he would own and rule, named Maryland in honor of the Catholic Queen Henrietta Maria. George Calvert died unexpectedly in the midst of this project, but his son Cecil faithfully carried out his father’s wishes. Maryland became a symbol of freedom for wealthy recusant English families, as well as for the poor who held to the Catholic faith despite great hardship. From the start, the colony was open to Protestants and Catholics equally, and the seeds of the religious freedom so dear to the American spirit were sown with the first colonists in 1634.
—James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.
11 November 2007
In the seventeenth century, English Catholics, many of them wealthy and well educated, looked to the American colonies as a place to regain a measure of religious freedom. In Ireland, the so-called penal laws were even harsher than in England, as a minority Parliament tried to force the conversion of the population by denying the majority political and economic power. Beginning in 1691, laws were passed that punished dissenters, principally Catholics, but also causing hardship for Jews, Quakers, and others. There were acts forbidding “mixed marriage” or sending children “beyond the seas” for schooling. Catholics were taxed at double the common rate, barred from the legal professions and from university, and not allowed to build churches or own a decent horse.
In 1793 the situation began to change, as it became clear that the economic persecution would not drive the majority away from Catholicism. Gradually, laws were repealed until by 1829 freedom was won, although Catholics at university were ineligible for honors, and until the 1920s and the Republic, the Church of Ireland was the state church, funded by the taxes of all citizens.—James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.
14 October 2007
This month, parishes around the country will conduct the “October count,” a measure of attendance at Sunday Mass. The measure has been taken for many centuries, and in some European dioceses it is possible to measure the level of engagement in worship by the population over the course of many centuries. Long ago, it was also the custom to track “Easter duty” by a statistical report. Penitents would receive a kind of chit at confession, which they would then turn in at their parish church when they received Holy Communion during Easter time. Long ago, of course, Communion was fairly rare in the life of a Catholic Christian, perhaps only once a year. The chits would be tallied by parish priests and reported to the chancery, which in turn would hold on to the records and include the statistics in a report to the Vatican every five years.
Nowadays, the October count has proved especially critical in the life of our Church as bishops use the figures to measure the vitality of church life, to sketch parish boundaries, and even to decide when to close, merge, or form new parishes.
—James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.
2 September 2007
In recent decades, attention has shifted away from headgear as a symbol of a bishop’s authority to a more substantial symbol: the chair, called the cathedra. The word comes from the Latin word for a chair with armrests. It is exactly the reason why dining room sets were marketed in this country a few years ago with only one chair with armrests, the captain’s chair. In many rectories of a certain vintage, you will see only one chair with arms at the dining table, a sign to the assisting priests of their proper place in the constellation. For us, as with most Anglicans and some Lutherans, the cathedra is a sign of the teaching authority of the bishop. We inherited the symbolism of the chair from Roman civil life in the fourth century. A church that houses a cathedra is called a cathedral, and the chair may be used only by the bishop of that diocese. Priests who preside at liturgy must use a different presidential chair.
You may find the cathedra in its most traditional place at the head of the apse, or against a side wall as was favored in medieval times, but increasingly bishops are locating the cathedra in the midst of the assembly of the faithful. In the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, visitors will find no barrier to their trying out the cathedra, an expression of hospitality that helps the archbishop be mindful of those whom he serves.
—James Field, © Copyright, J. S. Paluch Co.