Loony Liturgy: Screwing up the Sign of Peace part 1: Around the World!

How many ways can you ruin a kiss? Or a handshake? Or a warm embrace?

Plenty, if you're a priest who doesn't keep up with the latest in the General Instructions!

The "Sign of Peace" was added to the Mass during the reforms that came out of Vatican II. The idea is simple. There are many ways that we recognize Christ at Mass. He is found in the Holy Word of Scripture; he is represented by his ordained minister, the priest; he is found in the Eucharistic elements; and he is found in each of us.

The Tridentine Mass recognized only the vertical elements of our relationship to Christ -- those that related us to him in his Divinity. Christ as Word, Sacrament and sacred minister fit that bill. But what about the horizontal dimension of our relationship to Christ -- the "me and you" version? The Sign of Peace was supposed to highlight (if only or a moment) that horizontal element.

Good call, Eminences!

But for the last 40 years, priests have done everything they can to screw up the Sign. Here are a couple of the classic ways:

The Speed Demon
Let's face it, it takes more than 10 seconds to greet all the people around you, especially if you attend Mass as a family. So when the priest intones "Let us offer one another a sign of Peace. Lamb of God..." then you are stuck. Do you stop shaking hands with those around you? What if you haven't Peaced your spouse yet?

You have the awkward choice of either cutting off the Peace, or of embracing people during the Distribution Rite (the Lamb of God) itself Not pretty. Mosty people choose to finish the Peace, but it is awkward!

Around the World!
The Sign of Peace is just that -- a sign. It's supposed to symbolize a greater reality. Giving the peace to those immediately around us stands for our desire (and duty) to give peace to all people.

So when the priest says, "Let us offer each other a sign of peace," he doesn't necessarily mean all the others. But occassionally, especially in small groups, that's what you get -- a "sign" that goes on and on until everyone has "peaced" everyone else. It's the kind of thing that gives liturgists fits: a part of Mass that inexplicably gets blown up or chopped down out of proportion to the rest of the Mass.

But in the grand scheme of things, it's the least of my worries.

A variation on this is the congregation that "does its business" while the presider who struts around shaking hands like a selectman on election day. What does it mean, one wonders, when the priest offers the peace to a few people in the front pews, but to no one else? Or to those along the middle aisle? If you're going to shake hands with some, why not all?

It all sounds silly and nitpicky until you relize that the Mass is like the hula -- every motion has a meaning. Mess with the motion and you mess with the meaning.

Pray tell, Father (who presides at Mass in persona Christi):When "Christ" leaves the sanctuary to shake the hands of a few fo the faithful, what is the message? I hope it's more than, "Im the priest! I can do what I want! Watch me as I loooove the people!"

Sunday Reflection: The One who spoke, “not as the scribes”

Jesus today enters a synagogue, where he teaches “as one having authority and not as the scribes.” Though the gospel reading focuses today on the how people welcomed this, to some it was threatening. For one to speak “as the scribes” was to speak as a scholar – being careful of one’s sources, getting the footnotes right, anxious not to exceed the word of Scripture or of traditional interpretation. To speak as a scribe meant (with no ill intent) to convert God’s living word into a fossil, depriving it of its full meaning and import. To speak with authority, then, was to speak as a self-confident source of interpretation. It was to recognize in God’s word not a dead text to be exhibited with a curator’s care, but a living reality that continued to be expressed in the lives of its hearers. Jesus Christ, himself the pre-existing eternal Word of God, was -- in a synagogue in Capernaum – exercising both his right and his very being in the act of speaking the living word of God to God’s own people.

The reaction was electric. At least some saw Jesus as exhibiting God’s living presence. To this, they were irresistibly attracted. They recognized not just someone who knew the Scriptures backward and forward, but could plumb its depths and return with pearls of wisdom and value.

But for every one who yearned for Christ’s word, there were those who saw it as a threat. To interpret God’s word meant challenging the authority of previous interpreters. It meant finding in God’s word the simple message that might be simplistic -- or wrong. It means dismantling a system of beliefs, rituals and power that has given the community cohesion and meaning, and even its salvation. To be an innovator in this culture was not a value, but dangerous. God himself gave us the Law; he that would reshape it cannot be tolerated.

But Jesus was no mere innovator. As the Incarnate Word, he spoke himself, which gave his utterances the force of authority. As the human Jesus of Nazareth, however he gave himself into the power of his hearers. Whether to heed him or hound him, the Word gave himself into our power.

That choice is still ours to make today.
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Let us pray.

Lord Jesus, you who are the very Word of God, guide us as we listen to your word. May we be more than mere slaves to ancient texts and age-old interpretations, but see these anew by measuring them against the path of love, truth and light that you blazed for us. May our lives be your authoritative word to the world in which we live. May others see your words in the words we speak and your acts in the actions we perform. In your name we pray.

Amen.

Hokey Homiletics: The Violated Voicemail

It seems there's an edition to this section every week. This week, the homilist reported on a voice mail he received from a couple of "Hockey Dads". The story wasn't clear, but it seems that these Dads wanted to get their kids out of some obligation -- whether it was Mass or Religious Ed we were not told -- in order to see a "motivational speaker". I'm guessing the speaker was the kid from BU who was paralyzed a few years ago while playing the sport he loved. The fathers even offered to donate money to the Church or parochial school if they could be released from their obligation.

In any case, the homilist made it clear that the real motivational speaker was the one who speaks to us in his Word every Sunday: Christ.

I'm not arguing with that. I also don't like the idea that fathers would try to buy out of their religious obligations. And there are very many options for attending Mass that it's rarely necessary to miss Mass altogether.

But is there any justification in breaking a confidence made to a priest via a private phone call? Did the priest even call the fathers back to offer them advice on meeting their obligation? Or to tell them he did not have the authority to release them from it? We were not told.

There is something untoward in the spectacle of a man telling his flock that he broke one societal principle (maintaining confidentiality) in order to boast of upholding another -- holding a Catholic to his obligations.