Are young Catholics Cultural Orphans?

Recently a Catholic group concerned with promoting relationships with other faiths sent me a collection of brochures describing family life and traditions in Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, and Japanese Shinto cultures. Catholics were urged to establish contact and learn about the different festivals.

But there was nothing for them to take with them about their own culture. Despite the widespread ignorance among young Catholics about the Church's feast-days, fast-days, calendar and traditions, they were expected to go empty-handed with no materials speaking of our beliefs, prayers, or way of life.

A friend described to me enthusiastically a visit made with her Catholic women's group to a magnificent Hindu temple — the decorations, the grandeur, the formalities to be observed. They had been careful to dress appropriately and to observe any rituals required of them. They were intrigued by the meanings of the various things they saw.

These incidents came to mind as I spoke to a group of Catholic writers about Catholic customs — the origins of things like pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday, the scattering of flowers before the Blessed Sacrament in procession, May crowning of a statue of Mary, the blessing of throats for Saint Blaise in February.

In discussion afterwards, it became clear that there was widespread concern at the loss of our sense of Catholic culture — of belonging to a community rich in a heritage of faith stretching back 2,000 years. Many Catholic boys and girls today are more familiar with football rituals than with some of the basic signs and symbols of our Faith. Few would be able to explain confidently, for example, why we genuflect before the Tabernacle or why the priest wears vestments of different colors at various times of the year.

What are we doing? Many young Catholics don't even know we are meant to fast on Ash Wednesday, or attend Mass on various Holy Days. They don't have a liturgical "map" in their heads with landmarks such as Advent, Lent, or Pentecost. Their ideas about Christmas and Easter are formed not by Christians traditions but by commercial ones, and increasingly a paganized Halloween is replacing even the vaguest notions of All Saints Day and All Souls Day and praying for the dead in November.

We are creating generations of cultural and spiritual orphans — expecting them to remain Catholics without any links with the past, and without the sense of belonging to a community that has a glorious heritage of which they are a part and to which they can make their own contribution.

The willful destruction of many statues and shrines in churches in the 1970s (under the guise of "implementing Vatican II") is now generally acknowledged to have been a disaster, along with the deliberate and unnecessary abandonment of virtually all Latin in some parishes, so that words and phrases such as "Gloria in excelsis", "Pater noster" and "Sanctus" now mean little or nothing to many people.

But perhaps the greatest loss was the sense of "folk Catholicism", a confidence in our own value as a faith community, a people on pilgrimage together with ideas, songs, traditions and customs that bind us with one another and with those who have gone before.

It's not too late — it is never too late — to make things right. We can and must revive our Catholic memories and traditions. Modern life makes many things easier: we can travel to shrines and places of pilgrimage at home or abroad, we can enjoy great paintings and music via art galleries, CDs, and the Internet, and even family celebrations are easier thanks to supermarkets, freezers and modern kitchens, which take much of the grim labor out of preparing and serving meals.

Pope John Paul II has spoken often of the "domestic Church", the little human community that is the family. A Catholic family home should be a place of welcome and hospitality, where visitors can "catch" something of the flavor of the Catholic faith and absorb its message.

Grace at meals — perhaps varying according to the season, or to reflect specific events or needs. A special meal on the feast-day of the patron saint of each member of the family as it comes round. Traditional dishes for great Church feasts, perhaps discovered on trips abroad or in one's own country. Candles on an Advent wreath. Simple meals in Lent with funds saved going to Catholic projects. Commemorative candles from Baptism or First Communion carefully saved and re-lit for special occasions.

All of these things require planning — and encouragement, via the Sunday pulpit, from the clergy, who do need to remind us from time to time that our homes should not be shrines to television or merely places where we sleep, launder clothes, and grab snacks from the fridge.

We need reminders, too, about the importance of having a crucifix hanging in our home, together with perhaps a statue or picture of Our Lady and/or of the Sacred Heart — and that every Catholic should possess a Rosary, and know how to use it.

Catholic culture should obviously be widely reflected in our schools. It is a delight, on entering a Catholic school, to find a statue of Our Lady that is obviously well cherished and has a votive light or a fresh posy of flowers in front of it. It is sad when our schools seem keener on emphasizing their secular credentials than on celebrating the real values on which they were founded. I once passed a Catholic girls' school boasting the slogan "Educating girls for success", which struck me as being a quite horribly inaccurate vision of what such an establishment should be doing!

We need to think about Sunday as a special day. How often you hear people speak with respect of the ways Jewish families honor their Sabbath rituals, and yet we seem to think we can ignore Sunday Mass if it is a bit inconvenient, or treat Communion lightly, with snacks and sweets munched without thought to the need for an hour's fast.

In today's society, each of us needs to be evangelistic. People are hungry for real spiritual truths. Aromatherapy, counseling, and various diets may have their uses, but cannot answer our deepest needs. We are made for God, and there is an ache in our hearts until we find Him. Using our Catholic traditions and customs, we can restore our confidence in our own faith and learn to share it with others.

The next time some one asks you about Catholic customs and traditions, don't just mumble that we don't seem to have any — make it your business to rediscover them and pass them on.

Joanna Bogle is a British Catholic journalist who frequently appears on radio and television. Excerpts from her A Book of Feasts and Seasons appear on several pages of the Prayers and Devotions section on the WFF web site. She is the author of a book for girls aged nine and up, We Didn't Mean to Start a School ($10 - write Mrs. Bogle at 34 Barnard Gardens, New Malden, Surrey, KT3 6QG, England.)

This article previously appeared in Voices, the journal of Women for Faith & Family, and is adapted by permission.

Kidding there! My how times have changed. Although I think Catholic social teaching is very important, it seems to be at the forefront of religion classes today - even in the Catholic schools.

Last year I was approached to help with a fledgling "Middle School Youth Group" in my Catholic parish (notice the lack of the word "Catholic" in the title) and bowed out when the nun, in no uncertain terms, told me that the focus of the group would be "giving back" and "social justice." I have a friend who makes rosary beads and I suggested that we have her visit so the kids could learn to make rosary beads and possibly extra ones for the parish vesibule - and I would pay for the materials used. The nun wasn't interested as this was not part of what her goal for the group was. See YA!

Excellent article. And very good point. The Catholic faith should be something we live like the air we breathe.

You see the same problem after every revolution, like the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution. People are left as "cultural orphans." The old culture has been done away with, but the new culture is a synthetic manufactured thing at best, and aggressively evil at worst. Yet it can be difficult if not impossible to return to the old culture. What does a Russian do today -- do they return to the customs of the time of the czars?

The modernists have tried to deny us our cultural heritage and in so doing so have robbed us of our identity. (was that part of the plan?)

You mean you let somebody take something as precious as a spiritual heritage away from you? Come on. Catholic culture starts at home. My wife and I still have an Advent wreath during Advent, though the kids are long gone.

We're big boys and girls. It's high time we stopped waiting for "the Church" to tell us how to transmit our Catholic identity to our kids and those around us. Something as simple as insisting on grace at meals, and saying a quick prayer before bed as a family can become ingrained in a child's mind.

I saw my oldest cross himself at the graveside of a Protestant friend of the family a few months ago. Reminded me to do it too.

We also had a custom by which, on the hour, the nun (and our teachers were all nuns then) would break into the lesson and say, "Let us remember the Holy Presence of God," and the class would respond, "We adore His Divine Majesty." It was called "Blessing the Hour."

What a marvelous custom! I have never heard of this before, but I'm going to try to remember it. Thank you.

Each of us can do little things, but no one can create a culture of their own. Alasdair MacIntyre compares it to "playing the violin well in an orchestra that plays well." First it takes a lot of work and dedication on your part as an individual. But then you need to be part of a wider culture so that you can join together with other dedicated individuals. You can't have a 1-man orchestra.

We're big boys and girls. It's high time we stopped waiting for "the Church" to tell us how to transmit our Catholic identity to our kids and those around us.

I think Desdemona's point was more that the Church stopped cooperating in passing on Catholic culture (and I mean specifically culture -- leaving doctrine, etc., out of it). And one family's customs -- however traditional (and I don't mean to say that the individual family preserving these isn't important; that's the only way they will be preserved) -- don't really constitute a culture; you need a neighborhood, a parish, a universal Church.

I think Des misses a sense of wholeness.

Not only do we have an advent wreath at my house, somewhere I have packed away my own. There is actually competition in my house to put up the Creche and arrange the figures (BIG Fontanini set). So, that's not what I was talking about. It's more the spiritual culture and the understanding of why we do what we do. Why have an advent wreath if you don't understand or know advent? what exactly IS Gaudate Sunday? Why is the candle pink? That's the sort of stuff we're missing.

I once passed a Catholic girls' school boasting the slogan "Educating girls for success", which struck me as being a quite horribly inaccurate vision of what such an establishment should be doing!

Hmmm....

Maybe it's because I'm not Catholic (but I doubt it), but I don't see anything particularly wrong with that slogan.

You wouldn't want to see "Preparing girls for failure" or "Instilling in girls our tradition of mediocrity", right?

Or perhaps I've missed your point, in which case, sorry for having done so.

LOL! "Preparing girls for failure" or "Instilling in girls our tradition of mediocrity"

What was missing from the school slogan was "...in the Catholic tradition"... - dropped long ago although Catholic schools were originally started for academic excellence AND to instill a good Catholic education, especially here in the USA which was a Protestant country.

It's high time we stopped waiting for "the Church" to tell us how to transmit our Catholic identity to our kids and those around us.

It's a seamless garment kind of thing. My kids are young and I would be so grateful if my parish (CCD, Youth Group, homilies) backed me up when I teach my kids the Catholic catechism and Catholic tradition. Otherwise, I seem like a crank who is just about the only one who believes what I teach my kids. For example: the rosary. Never mentioned anywhere in my parish. Neither is Confession or the BVM and a bunch of other stuff. Other than the idea of the Mass (never heard it explained, though) and the priest's belief and sometime explanation of the Eucharist, my parish could almost be any Christian Church.

Something as simple as insisting on grace at meals, and saying a quick prayer before bed as a family can become ingrained in a child's mind.

Of course. But I would hope that the above isn't only a Catholic thing, that it is generic to religious belief everywhere - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.

Thanks, I had no idea Catholic schools actually used to have a longer official slogan, or even that they had an official slogan at all.

My knowledge is limited to stories my mother told me about Catholic school in the 40's/50's in Ann Arbor, where the nuns all carried a ruler, universally named "Mr. Trouble". Knuckles were known to run screaming from him.

She seems to have turned out allright, though. ;-)

Otherwise, I seem like a crank who is just about the only one who believes what I teach my kids.

LOL, I know just what you mean. I have told Mack numerous times sometimes it gets really hard to give my views on issues. I think all my friends think I'm some kind of radical religious kook, because I think gays are gays by choice, childrens educations is primarialy a parents responsibiliyt, divorce is wrong, abortion is wrong, etc. etc. And then of course there are all the fundalmentalist truths I believe that cause, it seems like everyone, to look at me with raised eyebrows. Most all my friends are just ladies I ride horses with, I find lately I don't do a whole lot of talking anymore when I am with them, unless it's about horses or the weather.

I try to keep in mind though, Jesus Christ was treated alot worse by His own, why should we expect it to be easier.

Becky

Good article, thanks for posting it.

Sometimes I am just overwhelmed to think how much we have lost, and how much modern Catholic young people are missing. My own kids (who are adults and grew up after VatII) have only bits and pieces of the tradition, and have never had the pleasure of living in a society with those shared references and memories.

I always think that the attack upon the Saints was part of this campaign to kill pre-VATII Catholic culture. That is, the attempt to show various saints to have been " non-existent," the complete dropping of the celebration of the feast days of saints, the dropping of the tradition of taking a Saint's name at Confirmation, the ignorance of one's own names day - were very effective in uprooting Catholics and breaking the connection with the past. This was clearly one of the objectives of the "reformers."

Of late, I've been studying up on prayer, primarily. It's amazing how many saints have their own chaplets and I had never heard of the concept before last year.

It's really appalling at how ignorant we are of our own culture and it's all available for us to find. We just have to look. Thank heaven for the internet.

the dropping of the tradition of taking a Saint's name at Confirmation,

Really??

I'll never forget the months of research and writing reports on "Why I chose this Saint Name", hoping the name would meet with Sisters approval.

Do the children even take a new name with the new Confirmation?

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