BEND — Be holy, be faithful, be firm, be compassionate, be available, be generous. This is a list of the attitudes of being which I would consider important for anyone in ecclesial ministry and especially priests. It is not by any means an exhaustive list but it is a beginning. Today I will comment on just two of these. Though I write this with myself and priests in mind, I suspect it can apply, in a general way, to all laity as well.
Be holy - It is very easy for us to become a bit complacent in our lives relative to genuine intense holiness and yet this must underpin every element of our lives and everything we do. In my mind the first measure of our seriousness about personal holiness lies with a very simple and clear indicator. It is simply: Do I say Mass every single day, without exception? Do I say Mass even on my “day off” and on every day during vacation? Certainly there are rare occasions when it is simply not possible but these ought to be exceedingly rare because if our daily Mass is a priority for us, as it must be, then we will generally be able to find a way to make time and place for it every day. Holiness must be job one for us and daily Mass is an essential part of that job.
Obviously recitation of the Divine Office is likewise a firm duty of every priest and constitutes for us a serious obligation. Oddly, or so it always seemed to me, the Church specifically requires the recitation of the Divine Office under pain of sin but does not have the same requirement for Holy Mass. I suspect that this is so because there is an underlying assumption that celebration of Mass, being so much an integral part of priesthood, does not need to be mandated. For instance, our Diocesan Statutes do not mandate that we eat something each day because there is a presumption that such a routine daily necessity will be observed. The Divine Office perhaps requires a bit more diligence and an added incentive to help assure that we do not grow cool in its regard. Each examination of conscience needs to include a consideration of the depth and degree of our reverence, attention and devotion relative to prayer and especially the Divine Office. Be holy.
Visits to the Blessed Sacrament and devotional prayer are likewise a part of the staple diet of our spiritual lives. It may sound like a strange commentary but parishioners have actually commented to me, “Oh Bishop, it’s so wonderful, our priest is now coming to Church before Mass and actually praying before the Blessed Sacrament for half an hour!” People are hungry for holiness and it is essential for us to lead them and to lead them by the witness of our own example. Be holy.
Be faithful. I have no doubt that our priests have a firm belief in the Lord’s Real Presence and in the authenticity of the teachings of the Catholic Church. This is certainly a good and necessary foundation for faithfulness but for us priests it is just that, a good foundation. That faithfulness, like holiness, needs to be witnessed in the concrete reality of our lives. Thus reverence before our Lord at Mass and in the sanctuary, where Pope John Paul II said “there is no danger of excess” of devotion gives witness to that which we believe. Faithfulness to the Church is manifest and given witness to by the way in which we celebrate Mass and the degree of our fidelity to the rubrics of the Sacred Liturgy. In this regard I will mention two very clear and easy-to-identify matters perhaps of the tiniest objective import and yet they do go to the seriousness of our fidelity. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) and our own Diocesan documents call for proper vestiture for Mass. This is an alb, a cincture, a stole and a chasuble for the main celebrant and a least an alb, cincture and stole for concelebrants. In regard to the alb, the rubrics call for an alb which entirely covers the collar and the use of an amice if the alb does not adequately cover the collar. A quick review of your present practice will reveal if this rubric is something about which you have been faithful. The rubrics also call for the use of a cincture. This can be a separate cord or the Velcro cinctures attached to certain types of albs. The rubrics call for the stole to be worn under the chasuble. While I recognize that liturgists and designers like to create external stoles and I have never commented to anyone about the issue of an overlay stole, the reality is that such use does not seem to be the mind of the Church. Our faithfulness needs to extend even to these things for faithfulness in the small things is a good indicator of faithfulness in greater things.
It would obviously be very easy to be very critical of me for even mentioning these small matters and yet I do so with a deeper purpose. The level of your internal adverse reaction to what I have just said is perhaps an indicator of the level to which you dislike being told what to do. These are not things which I am telling you to do, they are things which the Universal Church is telling you and we need to be faithful to them. Perhaps we especially need to be faithful in those areas where our personal feelings get in the way. Unfortunately it is very possible for our fidelity to be limited to those things with which we agree. Such agreement may not be fidelity at all.
Hopefully, in the next couple of years we will be undergoing a revision of the language we use at Holy Mass. New translations are getting closer and closer to approval. This affords us an opportunity to do a more thorough review of how we celebrate Mass and how faithful we are to the words and rubrics of the celebration itself. Over the years there have been a number of minor modifications and accretions and the revision of the language will be a good opportunity for us to look again at the rubrics and make a more concerted effort to be more fully faithful to what the Church is calling us to do. The man who is faithful in little things will be faithful in the greater as well. It is important for us to review the rubrics of Holy Mass, examine our own personal faithfulness to the particulars and make a concerted effort to be faithful.
