Should we resist the precious and the sublime?

Father Z's comment on the red shoes and mozetta reflects the true humility which is demanded of the priest who should see the honorific gestures not as accorded to his person but rather to Christ in whose person he comes.

The seeming simplification of vestments and anything about the rites which Pope Francis prefers is really sending the wrong signal that the Church of the poor must have poor liturgy! I now hear people saying that the Church must veer away from its high church liturgies and perform low church rites in order to be more relevant, and even more "people-friendly". I find it disturbing that the liturgy is once again being regarded as a theater performance wherein we should look poor in order to appeal to the masses. In the present political season in the Philippines, I notice that political candidates no longer have themselves photographed in the formal barong tagalog wear but in t shirts and blue jeans. A politician (born again fundamentalist) used to put the title "bishop" before his name. Now he reverts to being called "brother". Are these for real???

Unfortunately, everybody wants to ride the "simplicity" band wagon on account of the new Pope. However, everybody seems to forget that sacred ministers are not actors who pretend to be poor in order to be relevant. Sacred ministers are, in reality, "sacramental signs" of Christ, who is seated at the right hand of the Father. We come in the name of Christ. We come in the person of Christ. In the Sacred Liturgy, the priest is Christ and Christ is the priest. The priest must have enough humility to be able to accept the fact that he is no longer his own.

I find Fr. Z's reflection very relevant to the present issue:

"The Catholic priest is simultaneously the victim offered on the altar.  All the older, traditional ceremonies of the Roman Rite underscore this foundational dimension of the Mass. If we don’t see that relationship of priest, altar, and victim in every Holy Mass, then the way Mass has been celebrated has failed.  If we don’t look for that relationship, then we are not really Catholic.  Mass is Calvary.

The use of beautiful marble in the church building, precious fabrics and metals for vestments and vessels, music that requires true art and skill to perform, ritual gestures which to worldly eyes seem to be the stuff of bygone eras of royals and the like, all underscore the fact that step by step during Holy Mass the priest is being readied for the sacrifice, which – mysteriously – he himself performs.

Back when I resisted the liturgical kissing of my hand when being handed a chain, spoon or chalice, I had made the mistake of imagining myself to be more humble by that resistance.  That was a mistake.  Ironically, my resistance to those gestures turned the gestures into being about me.  Submission to the gestures, on the other hand, erases the priest’s own person and helps him to be what he needs to be in that moment: priest, victim, alter Christus.   The trappings, the rubrics, the gestures erase the priest’s poor person.  Resisting these things runs the risk of making them all about the priest again.

In a sense, I had made the objection of Judas about the precious nard which the woman brought to the Lord.  Jesus responded that the precious stuff should be kept for His Body, which was to be sacrificed.  People who object that we should have only poor liturgy are falling into the argument of Judas.  We must submit to the precious and sublime in recognition of the truth of what is going on.   To pit the sublime and complex and precious and beautiful against the low, simple and humble is schizophrenic and not Catholic."

Philippines: Last Nation Standing

"A new intolerance is spreading...When for example, in the name of non-descrimination, people try to force the Catholic Church to change her position on homosexuality or the ordination of women (or divorce), then that means that SHE IS NO LONGER ALLOWED TO LIVE OUT HER OWN IDENTITY AND THAT, INSTEAD, AN ABSTRACT, NEGATIVE RELIGION IS BEING MADE INTO A TYRANNICAL STANDARD THAT EVERYONE MUST FOLLOW." (Benedict XVI, Light of the World: A Conversation With Peter Seewald, 52.)

May God preserve the Philippines from a Divorce Law!

Follow the link:
PHL now only nation in the world without divorce; Malta gives in - World - GMA News Online - Latest Philippine News

On the Loss of the sense of God

"It is clear that the loss of contact with God's wise design is the deepest root of modern man's confusion, both when this loss leads to a freedom without rules and when it leaves man in 'fear' of his freedom.

"By living 'as if God did not exist', man not only loses sight of the mystery of God, but also of the mystery of the world and the mystery of his own being.

"The eclipse of the sense of God and of man inevitable leads to a practical materialism, which breeds individualism, utilitarianism, and hedonism. Here too we see the permanent validity of the words of the Apostle, 'And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct' (Rom. 1:28). The values of being are replaced by those of having. The only goal which counts is the pursuit of one's own material well-being. The so-called 'quality of life' is interpreted primarily or exclusively as economic efficiency, inordinate consummerism, physical beauty and pleasure, to the neglect of the more profound dimensions of existence - the interpersonal, spiritual and religious dimensions.

"In such a context, suffering, an inescapable burden of human existence but also a factor of possible growth, is 'censored', rejected as useless, indeed opposed as an evil, always and in every way to be avoided. When it cannot be avoided and the prospect of even some future well-being vanishes, then life appears to have lost all meaning and the temptation grows in man to claim the right to suppress it.

"Within this same cultural climate, the body is no longer perceived as a properly personal reality, a sign and place of relations with others, with God, and with the world. It is reduced to pure materiality; it is simply a complex of organs, functions, and energies to be used according to the sole criteria of pleasure and efficiency. Consequently, sexuality too is depersonalized and exploited: from being the sign, place, and language of love, that is, of the gift of self and acceptance of another, in all the other's richness as a person, it increasingly becomes the occasion and instrument for self-assertion and the selfish satisfaction of personal desires and instincts. Thus the original import of human sexuality is distorted and falsified, and the two meanings, unitive and procreative, inherent in the very nature of the conjugal act, are artificially separated: in this way, the marriage union is betrayed and its fruitfulness is subjected to the caprice of the couple. Procreation then becomes the 'enemy' to be avoided in sexual activity; if it is welcomed, this is only because it expresses a desire, or indeed the intention, to have a child 'at all costs', and not because it signifies the complete acceptance of the other and therefore an openness to the richness of life which the child represents."

Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 22-23.