Posted on 10/06/2005 4:41:49 PM PDT by NYer
While contentious issues such as celibacy and communion for divorced and remarried Catholics have dominated headlines in the early days of the Synod of Bishops, quietly a number of other surprising themes are emerging, including the connection between the Eucharist and ecology.
Two bishops from the developing world have insisted that if the Eucharist is the summit of all creation, then it necessarily implies concern for the integrity of the environment.
Both men have linked this concern with real-world problems of environmental degradation experienced in their countries.
“Climactic change presents a serious threat to world peace. It is an authentic ‘sign of the times’ that demands of us an ‘ecological conversion,’” said Archbishop Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno of Huancayo, Peru, on Oct. 4.
“The church has a huge responsibility in this spiritual field,” said Barreto Jimeno, a Jesuit.
“As ‘fruit of the earth’, the bread and the wine represent the creation which is entrusted to us by our Creator,” Barreto Jimeno said. “For that reason the Eucharist has a direct relationship with the life and hope of humanity and must be a constant concern for the church and a sign of Eucharistic authenticity.”
“[In] the Archdiocese of Huancayo, the air, the ground and the basin of the river Mantaro are seriously affected by contamination,” he said. “The Eucharist commits us to working so that the bread and wine be fruit of ‘a fertile, pure and uncontaminated land.’”
Bishop Gabriel Peñate Rodríguez, Apostolic Vicar of Izabal in Guatemala, made much the same argument in his Oct. 5 intervention.
“Guatemala is a country menaced by mineral exploitation,” Peñate Rodríguez said.
“Many licenses have been granted in this field to companies from developed countries who do not guarantee the care of the environment, and show no respect for the rights of the indigenous communities; and that are not fair in the distribution of profits, from which they leave hardly one per cent in form of royalties.”
Using much the same language as his fellow Latin American Barreto Jimeno, Peñate Rodríguez issued a plea: “We also hope that the bread that is converted in the body of the Lord and the wine which is converted into his blood may be fruit of a fertile, pure and uncontaminated land,” he said.
Another theme struck by bishops from the global South has been the importance of small Christian communities in offering catechesis and forming authentic Eucharistic devotion.
José Mario Ruiz Navas, Archbishop of Portoviejo in Ecuador, made the argument.
“Discipleship, as knowledge and recognition, goes together with an interpersonal relationship,” he said. “This normally takes place in small communities and movements; it is difficult that it takes place in the crowd, and even less in a multitude.”
Bishop Peter Kang U-Il of Cheju, Korea, made much the same point on Oct. 4.
Up to now there has been very little deep personal contact between Catholics within the parish structure,” he said. “But in recent years Asian believers have been building up a sense of communion with their brothers and sisters in faith through the small Christian communities.”
“People who experience this sense of communion with their neighbors are better prepared to deepen their sense of communion within the context of Eucharist,” U-Il said. “From this point of view the vitalization of small Christian communities is an excellent means of helping believers to deeply understand the value of the Eucharist and to participate more fully in its celebration.”
One other point that surfaced in Oct. 5 discussions was the intrinsic link between the Eucharist and social justice. Patriarch Grégoire III Laham of the Greek- Melkhite rite quoted Eastern fathers of the church to make the point.
“St. John Chrysostom, in his 50th Homily on St. Matthew, says, ‘The mystery of the Eucharist is the mystery of the brother, and judgment will be on the way we link together the mystery of Christ present in the Holy Eucharist and the sacrament present in the brothers,’ “ Laham said.
“In the fourth century, Narsaï the Syrian also tells us, ‘Holiness without your brother man is not holiness, for you cannot enter the Kingdom alone.’ “
An area of clash came in discussion of the Eucharist as sacrifice, and the need to balance between the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the Mass.
In the open session Wednesday night, Cardinal George Pell of Australia voiced concern that talk about “various presences” of Christ, such as in the community, in scripture, and in the individual believer can blur the centrality of the real presence in the Eucharist.
“We are not pantheists,” he warned the synod.
One bishop from Eastern Europe warned that a lack of reverence in treating the Eucharist reflected “maybe even veiled forms of profanation.”
At the same time, Bishop Jacques Perrier of Lourdes, France, warned that an exclusive focus on the real presence of Christ in the reserved host could lead precisely to a neglect of the other “real presences,” and an overly individualistic sense of the sacrament.
For the first time so far, two addresses in the synod drew applause Thursday morning: Archbishop Lucian Muresan from Romania, who offered a moving testimony on the suffering of the churches behind the Iron Curtain, and Cardinal Ignace Moussa I Daoud, who ended with a strong plea for unity among the various branches of the Christian family, including the capacity to celebrate the Eucharist around a common table.
Pope Benedict XVI was present Thursday morning, and was applauded as he exited by a group of American seminarians from the North American College.
In a touch reminiscent of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter carrying his own luggage, Benedict appeared the morning of Oct. 6 carrying his own tote bag with the documents from the synod, an “everyman” touch uncharacteristic of previous popes.
In other synod business, results of voting for the moderators and relators of the 12 small working groups were released. Among American participants, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia was selected as the moderator of English Group A, while Bishop Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh is the relator of English Group B.
NCR - Platform For Heretics. Got it.
Allen does seem to be putting more than a little bit of spin on comments by two bishops.
At a late Mass on All Saints Day last year, I noticed they are still with us. A new generation of mumbling old ladies has risen up in spite of the vernacular!
Perhaps they serve some purpose in The Body Of Christ that is not clear to the majority. Perhaps they are necessary.
...there are different forms of service but the same Lord;
there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.
To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.
Yes, Mater Ecclesiae it is.
Of course I never meant to include you in that mono-glot category.
I agree with your point that the vernacular is helpful, and with a good translation, it can be edifying. I would not object, as a matter of principle, to having the TLM celebrated in English. That would be a major improvement over the vernacular Novus Ordo.
But I was more stressing the point that American Society has some ingrained reluctance/abhorrence towards other lanuages. It's one thing that immigrants should be able to speak English, but many will go further and feel offended that said immigrants still speak their native languages in public. This attitude is what I don't like. I encourage biligualism and such. I wish I could speak Italian, but my grandparents did not pass that on to my parents. BTW, this is something I will probably rectify soon enough, but my Italian would be all book knowledge, and not quite the same as having learned it at home with family.
Back to the point though. I think in this day and age with many more people being "educated", that the ability to learn and participate in a dead language is easier than it ever has been. All it requires is a little effort. My wife, who had never been to a TLM before we met 3 years ago, now knows more Latin than the average TLM attendee, but not because I have given her any official instruction, but because she decided to put the little effort in to learn it by immersion at Mass. With the right priest in place, many could be encouraged to learn Latin (or Greek) this same way.
This is no way suggests that everyone should take formal instruction in said languages. The Latin used at Mass is very minimal compared to the entire scope of that language.
But I think more folks can understand the Latin Mass than you would expect. So much of our English is taken from the Latin, so many cognates, it starts to sink in even if you don't speak the language formally.
After all, repetitio mater studiorum . . . or something like that . . .
"But you see, NYer, it wasn't really the Tridentine Mass that was the problem, but rather a centuries long inculcating of the people that they were simply individual, autononmous observers of the Mass. That is not what the Liturgy was ever meant, properly, to be. The Liturgy is just what its name says it is, the work of the people, not as individuals but as a community together. The problem lies in a mindset which took hold of the Western Church centuries ago and which, luckily, never got into Orthodoxy or all of the Eastern Rite Churches in communion with Rome. Your own Maronite Church, however, as your priest will tell you, became almost completely Latinized, something which of late, by the grace of God, that Church has been moving away from."
(Your posts on this thread are very good)
The communal aspects of the Liturgy is, in my view, the major difference between eastern Christianity and western. Speaking broadly....in the western Liturgy, you're a spectator. In the eastern Liturgy, you're a participant.
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