...and NOW, for what I think.

UPDATED SOME MORE!
I have tweaked the blogroll. Updated some links and, sadly, deleted some links to websites where their authors posted (or irresponsibly permitted the posting of) inexcusably uncharitable comments on Pope Francis. Not particulalry in the mood to send readers their way. Whatever consequences ensue will not prove to be something which will weigh heavily upon my conscience. Pray for them.

UPDATE!
To all the new kids...hi. Some very kind retweeting/reposting/linking -- contrary to some third hand accounts, I am not a Jesuit; just a regular guy educated and formed by many saintly ones -- has led a whole swarm of people to discover my semi-neglected blog, on the strength of some translations I had done of then-Cdl. Bergoglio's pastoral letters and homilies (found here, if you can manage in Spanish). The good news is that I have translated more than is posted on this blog, the bad news is that those translations were on my pal Karen's now-defunct blog, the late, lamented Some Have Hats. [Moment of silence.] I am trying to retrieve those translations and will post them when I do.

Please pray for the Holy Father. He is getting a lot of flak from the Usual Suspects (yawn!) and, sadly, he's also getting flak from people who really, really should know better. Pray for them also, s.v.p.

And now, we rejoin my blog post, already in progress.

*******************************
If you have been with this blog from Back In The Day, you will recall that I have been strongly drawn to then-Cdl. Bergoglio, now Pope Francis.

So I had an unfair advantage on Wednesday.

I was listening to some rather excellent tropical exotica music, when my wife texted me

WHITE SMOKE

Immediately I turned to a news station on the radio. Yes, there had been white smoke, and the news anchors blathered and repeated and reiterated the dullest talking points imaginable as the world waited. But in the back of my mind, I was glad. I ached to be in front of a TV screen.

"Please, God, don't let me miss this."

Some unwise driving maneuvers and uncharitable honking later, I screeched to a halt in my driveway, lowering property values in the process. I sprinted inside the house like when I had too much espresso and San Pellegrino and foolishly didn't avail myself of the facilities before setting off.

I turned on the TV, fumbled with the remote to find EWTN.

At that nanosecond, the curtains to the loggia opened and a thin, frail Cardinal (Cdl. Tauran, the Protodeacon, who suffers from Parkinson's) came out and, looking like it took all his strength and might, said:

Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum...habemus papam!
Crowd goes wild.
Then the din dies down.

Eminentissimum ac reverendissimum Dominum,
Yes? Go on.

Dominum Georgium
George? Y'mean PELL is the new Pope?

Marium
WHOA. It's Bergoglio!

Sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ Cardinalem Bergoglio,
It is! It IS Bergoglio!

Qui sibi nomen imposuit Franciscum.
At this point all my Steubenville pals get all excited.

Karen (Remember her? Many of Cdl. Bergoglio's best stuff, as translated by me to English, was on her old blog.) called me, her girlish glee barely restrained. Five years ago we had had a casual dinner with several Jesuit pals of ours -- whose holiness was evident by the fact they said Grace when the cocktails arrived -- and the name Bergoglio floated by. The assembled Jesuits all nodded reverently at this mention.

"Did they really pick a Jesuit?" We were overjoyed, knowing something about the man. Here was a guy who could swing the axe; had, in fact, swung the axe. Swung the axe when it would have been infinitely more expedient to leave said axe unswung. Swung it and not counted the (considerable, at times) the cost.

Now, among some of my Traditionalist confreres (including my pal Michael Brendan Dougherty), there was some worry. In some cases, outright desolation. Despondency. Anger. They were, as Jackie Mason puts it, "nauseous and disturbed." The inmates at Rorati Cæli were particularly throbbing with indignation, and some of the posts thereat, and comments thereto, were (in my considered opinion) in their scandalous lack of charity -- or basic research -- woeful, disgraceful and appalling. But, hey, I'm used to being appalled so I was able to soldier on past the wailing and gnashing of Jansenist* teeth.

To say that a riptide of discomfort has manifested itself in some of the "Trad" ranks is an understatement. I theorize that Burkean conservatism runs in many a Trad vein, and that carries with it a sort of genetic predisposition for melancholy and despair with it.

(That the outer fringe of the "Spirit of Vatican II" contingent is, or will be, mightily disappointed in this Pope is a given. I cannot say the matter weighs heavily upon my conscience.)

It must be said the Holy Father and I do not seem to share liturgical sensibilities. I harbor no illusions he will lead that particular charge. I share the concerns of those who are especially attached to the EF Mass. (Irony of ironies, it is at our Jesuit-run parish where the TLM is closest to me.) I am not downplaying that.

Color me Pollyanna-on-XTC but even that -- and I am on record as being as big a fan of High Church traditionalism as can be managed without genetic engineering -- is not sufficient to dampen my enthusiasm for the current Holy Father. I note the Pope has actually spoken bluntly about the "hot button issues" and called them for what they are. He could have very easily mumbled vague disapproval as so very, very many of his brother bishops have. But to call something -- openly, without even the merest chemical trace of shame or compunction -- the work of Satan? Who else within the last 25 years has said that? Or, what's more, said so relentlessly and without pause?

And he picks the theme up in his 1st papal homily, all the while as he extemporizes a beautiful catechesis on how the Church must profess Christ and His cross.

Yes, I have my liturgical concerns. But I am hopeful and, at least for now, remain very pleased.

AMDG,

-J.

* For those of you who cannot be bothered to read up on Jansenism, every time you come across the term, just replace it with "prissy pessimism" and that'll be close enough for Curial work.

I'm offering this up, you know.

An interview with Vaticanist Sandro Magister was published earlier this week and translated into English on Another Blog I Don't Like Linking To. Said blog, to underline its views on the Holy Father, accompanied said piece with a picture of a cover from The Advocate (featuring the Holy Father with a NoH8 on his face).

I'll leave to your conclusions the intent.

That blog's version featured some...um...interesting interstitial comments (presumably by the translator) and some curious word choices in the translation. Keep in mind the answers are the opinions of Sandro Magister, and also be aware of the biases of the interviewer. Many of these opinion are based on demonstrably incorrect assumptions. (I'll add the links relevant thereto as I have time.)

As a public service, here is my version. Feel free to compare it to the original.

-J.
=======================
“Pope disorients many bishops” This is the conclusion of Sandro Magister, who for 40 years has closely followed the events of the Vatican “because he [moves] on several levels and also often contradicts himself.”

Sandro Magister this year celebrated 40 years of chronicling the Vatican. His first articles in L’Espresso, in fact, date back to 1974. And even today, [not just] from those columns but also from the website of that weekly, continues to report on the Oltretevere [i.e. “Vatican”] and the whole Church in highly documented manner but without reverence of any sort.

[He is] a native of Busto Arsizio, “class” [i.e. born in] 1943 and graduated in philosophy and theology from La Cattolica, and has followed many Roman pontiffs. On this last [pontiff] Pope Francis, his chronicles are distinguished from the mainstream of Vaticanisti, and do not hesitate in underlining [any] contradictions.

Question: Magister, pope Bergoglio, in these [last] months, has enjoyed a global success but there were also some decisions that have given [us] to think about. For example, he has presented himself as Bishop of Rome, [yet] at the Synod on the family reclaimed the codes of Canon Law which affirm Petrine power [in the sense of “authority”].

A: It is true, in his closing discourse [or “speech”].

Q: He has outlined a shared and open vision in the government of the Church, has commissariated [there is no exact translation, but roughly means “governed through intermediaries”] the Franciscans of the Immaculate with somewhat hard methods and has de facto put the bridle to episcopal conferences...

A. Some, including the Italian [one], have been, in fact, annihilated.

Q. Speaking of popular movements, he seemed to re-echo certain analyzes of Toni Negri on labor, as you wrote in the blog Settimo Cielo, when then accepts the "dismissal" of 500 among calligraphers and painters and printers of whom the Vatican Charities has decided to no longer avail itself.

A. In effect that story is a bit strident...

Q. …as strident as the hard ultra-protective [there is no exact translation for “garantiste”] position, on justice and prisons, with his choice to incarcerate beforehand the ex-nuncio of Santo Domingo, in expectation of a judgment [conviction?] of pædophilia.

A. That also.

Q. So, you are a long term Vaticanist, what ideas do you have [bout this]?

A. That the contradictions are there and represent an informed judgment, based on the observation of several months, inherent in the personality of Jorge Bergoglio.

Q. And what conclusions does that bring?

A. He is a person who, throughout the arc of his life and now also as Pontiff, acts on different registers [in the sense of “levels”] simultaneously, leaving gates open, and on a first reading, many contradictions. But the ones that you mentioned are not, however, the only ones.

Q. Point to others...

A. That of a loquacious Pope, who phones, who approaches very diverse and very distant people, but remains silent on the case of Asia Bibi.

Q. The Pakistani sentenced to death for apostasy, jailed for some time...

A. Exactly, on whose story pope Francis did not say a word. As it was for Nigerian girls kidnapped, and on the incredible deed, a few days ago in Pakistan, on that married Christian couple, burned [to death] in a furnace.

Q. There are stories that relate to Islam, to which we shall return. But some are beginning to define these contradictions as “Jesuitism” in the sense of a nuanced [literally “changing” in the sense of “gradient”] way of thinking.

A. In these terms this is a disparaging qualifier and not acceptable, even if it is true that the spirituality of the Jesuits has been shown historically to be able to adapt to the most varied situations and, at times, in contrast with each other.

Q. This appeared to contrast with the management of the recent Synod.

A. A management accurately calculated by the Pope and not left to chance as one may have believed it, and which registers other contrasting elements.

Q. For example?

A. Bergoglio, who said, repeatedly, that they do not want to compromise on doctrine, to stay with the tradition of the Church. But then he opened discussions, such as those on communion of the remarried, which effectively touch the cornerstones of the magisterium.

Q. Why?

A. Because it is inexorable that the communion of the remarried [leads to the] arrival of the acceptance of second marriages and then to the dissolution of the sacramental bond of marriage.

Q. I’m no Vaticanist, but the feeling, from the outside and that disconcert is spreading a bit and not only within the hierarchy. Moreover, even in areas not clearly definable as traditionalist...

A. Of this there is no doubt. There are exponents of notable importance and certainly not Lefebvrians, who understand, even if they do not express it in drastic and adversarial terms. Not even Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, the ex-prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, recently removed, has done this, because there is not a current prejudicially hostile to the pontiff. Certainly, there are manifestations of evident unease.

Q. Are there some examples?

A. Let's take a look at the Episcopate in the United States, the bishops of one of the most numerous Catholic populations of the globe. The bishops' conference, in recent years, has expressed a coherent [or “consistent”] and combative line in the public square, [sometimes] also in respect to certain decisions of Barack Obama on ethical issues. A line that is shared by many prelates of prominence. A collective, more than a sum of individuals, a core which directs [the bishops], say.

Q. And therefore the Americans?

A. Are a bit uneasy. These are cardinals and archbishops such as Timothy Dolan in New York, Patrick O'Malley of Boston, José Gómez in Los Angeles or Charles Chaput in Philadelphia. An episcopate from which comes the same Burke, who is certainly not confined to marginal circuits of [the] traditionalists, but continues to be part of one of the more solid national Churches.

Q. And also the CEI [Italian Episcopal Conference], as was said before, appears to be in a little bit of difficulty.

A. It is difficult to keep pace to this pope. With a president, Angelo Bagnasco, who seems to be in the most difficulties of all.

Q. Also because it was openly stated his successor as archbishop of Perugia would be Gualtiero Bassetti, created Cardinal by Bergoglio.

A. And yet, I also know that Bassetti is among the Italian bishops to be uneasy.

Q. Among Italians, the most explicit were perhaps the milanese Angelo Scola and the bolognese Carlo Caffarra.

A. They were intervening [i.e., speaking openly, “lobbying”?] before and during the Synod. But it was inevitable considering the decision of the pope to entrust to Cardinal Walter Kasper the opening of the discussions, and which practically was the opening of hostilities.

Q. Why?

A. Because Kasper re-proposes today, unachanged [no exact translation for “tali e quali”], the thesis defeated in 1993 by the duo Pope John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger, the latter vested with the prefecture of the Holy Office.

Q. Yes, the Pope launched Kasper, has made Archbishop Bruno Forte special secretary of the synod that, during the work [of the Synod] has weighed in, to such an extent as to give rise to reactions of some Synod fathers, but then in the end, Francis intervened caning [!] one and the other. Almost an as old Christian Democrat against extremists on both sides.

A. It's another [example] of recurring forms of expression of this pontiff: reprimanding one part and the other. However, wanting to do an inventory, his canings of traditionalists, the legalists, the rigid defenders of the arid doctrine, appear to be much more numerous and targeted. On the other hand, when he takes on the [progressive] do-gooders, you never understand who he is talking about.

Q. The Synod has launched more and further the director of Civiltà Cattolica, Father Antonio Spadaro.

A. He styles himself a spokesman for the Pope and the Jesuit magazine, which was progressively declining (with him as director busying [himself] with the web and social networks) today is expressive of the highest pinnacle in the Vatican. Especially after the first big interview with the Jesuit pope. While Francis’ ghostwriter is Manuel Fernandez, the Rector of the Catholic University in Buenos Aires whom the Pope made an Archbishop. It was with Fernandez that Francis wrote Evangeli Gaudium, as he [they] had written the document of Aparecida in Brazil with him in 2007 when [Francis] as the then-Archbishop of Buenos Aires successfully “brought home” the Latin American Bishops’ Conference; document that for many is an anticipation of this papacy.

Q. In the face of a large consensus, there are also people who, as the writer Antonio Socci, contests even the validity of the election of the pope. Have you read his book It’s Not Francis (Mondadori Press)?

A. I read it in one evening, in one breath, even if there are more than 300 pages. And not for [his] thesis of the invalidity of the election, due to the cancellation of one ballot into the conclave, on the grounds of a white card. A thesis, in my opinion, inconsistent [i.e. baseless]

Q. So then, because of what was the reading so interesting?

A. For what is determining the success of the book, to both to push to the top of the charts, overtaking the books by and about Bergoglio. And this is because it reconstructs, with indisputable facts and words, the contradictions which we have cited.

Q. A book of which none speaks, almost risking to imperil the popularity of Francis, which is enormous. In spite of this consensus, however, religious practice does not increase and, indeed, there is a growing aversion, in public, to Catholicism. Bergoglio yes, the rest not.

A. Even the popularity of his predecessors, let us not forget, was very strong. John Paul II has experienced a worldwide success and not only in the years facing [his] illness. And Pope Benedict XVI, between 2007 and 2008, reached the pinnacles in the opinion polls, even if this is forgotten. His trip to the USA was the climax, with a large and positive reception even on the part of the lay public.

Q. And so what is the difference?

A. That the predecessors were popular especially within the Church, even if challenged harshly by strong sectors of non-Christian public opinion. While the popularity of Francis appears to be on the outside, even if it does not cause waves of conversion. Indeed, with him there is a certain contentment in culture foreign or hostile to Christianity.

Q. In what sense?

A. In seeing the head of the Church moving to their positions, which he seems to understand and even accept. The story of the repeated talks with Eugenio Scalfari is exemplary: the pope accepts the founder La Reppublica, once the hardest protester of the pontiff, publishing from their talks whatever he wants.

Q. Though, Scalfari himself declared he had published things which Bergoglio had not said.

A. Exactly. But, in all of this, there is no nearing to Christianity. Christianity from the mouth of Bergoglio is not provocative, makes no problems as before, it can be treated with courtesy, superiority, distance. Christianity counts less. Suffice it to say that to the President of the Council, Matteo Renzi, a Catholic, what the IEC does is not important at all. In short, from a situation of confrontation or conflict, we have passed to [one of] disinterest.

Q. On the Muslim world, pope Francis is silent. And even the Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, intervening [i.e., speaking] recently at the United Nations, has been very prudent. Some speak of a great deal of caution, and, when they do, they cite the address of Benedict XVI in Regensburg, which provoked [hostile] reactions and even deaths.

A. It is a caution pushed to the extreme that, however, in practice, I cannot see the advantages it produces, it does not seem to me it results in aid, however minimal or partial, to the Christians of those regions. The caution you can understand, if you measure it in proportionality to the effect, that is if it produces less damage. The situation reminds me of the silence of Pius XII on the Jews.

Q. A historic polemic, even the recent ...

A. Pope Pacelli did everything he could to save the Israelites, even personally in the Vatican, now we know. But he hesitated to openly denounce, fearing that [things would] happen as in Holland, where the complaints of some bishops were followed by even worse persecutions.

Q. But this silence is remains.

A. Except the Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, prefect of interreligious dialog, which does not spare [his] judgments, however severe.

Q. What is the point?

A. It is that with powers such as ISIS, with which there is haste to say that Islam has nothing to do with it, but that [they] are instead nourished by a radical Islam, which does not resolve the question of rationality and therefore the relationship between faith and violence. That is precisely what Pope Ratzinger had denounced in Regensburg. And in fact the only true dialogue between Christianity and Islam and was born from that lecture, with the next letter of the 138 Muslim scholars.

Q. But the visit to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the year after, that was considered a reparation of Benedict XVI.

A. Ratzinger could make that gesture, having said those things at Regensburg. His judgment was not enigmatic, we understood it very well, had expressed it with crystalline clarity.

Q. And is Francis clear?

A. Sometimes no. When in Bethlehem stops in front of the wall that divides the territories from Israel and remains in absolute silence: it isn’t known what he is intending to say. And when in Lampedusa cries out "shame," it is not clear who should be ashamed or why. Italy? That has saved thousands and thousands of lives? Why not say so? There are often words and gestures that are intentionally left in uncertainty.

Q. There is no time to talk about the Vatican events, such as that of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who was removed from the IOR under the secretariat of the Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, but of whom has emerged, on several occasions, that he had been correct. Even with the closing [of the case] by the Italian courts.

A. It denies a rehabilitation. Has asked for an interview with the Pope but that was refused.

Q. The Church as "field hospital" sometimes has locked doors.

A. It is like that.

Me and Pope Francis/Cdl. Bergoglio...sorta.

I'll tell you a story, since there's nothing good on the Internet right now.

Every morning, after the (usually) 8am Mass, I carve a few moments for Adoration. When I heard that Benedict XVI was retiring, I made it a point to bring his ministry to Adoration.

After a few days -- because I'm quick like that -- it dawned on me that I should also bring to Adoration the College of Cardinals who'd be huddling up... all Conclave-like to elect a successor.

In the process of doing so, for some reason it came into my mind after a few days (again...because I have reflexes like a lynx) while in Adoration, to pray something like this:

"Lord, ONLY IF SUCH A PONTIFICATE WOULD BE PLEASING TO YOU, please place Cdl. Bergoglio in the minds of the Cardinal Electors to ascend to the Chair of St. Peter."

 

Obviously, my regard for then-Cdl. Bergoglio was (and is) quite strong, as evidenced by the number of homilies, letters, etc. which I translated -- translating is kind of a pain in the [bad word] so that should be an indication of the esteem in which I hold our current Holy Father -- to say nothing of the other over ones to which I haven't yet gotten to, over the course of years and years.

 

No johnny-come-lately I.

 

But, so as not to get you too hopped up, God has not yet gotten into a pattern of granting me my requests exactly as I phrase them. (Dum spiro, spero.)

Still, I feel like the nerdy kid who hits a grand slam after many, many at-bats.

Cdl. Bergoglio's Easter Vigil Homily

More from H.E. Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, SJ down in Buenos Aires. (You'll note that in spectacularly Jesuit fashion, Cdl. Bergoglio is brief and VERY to the point.)

AMDG,

-J.

================================

1. In the shadows of the Temple we have followed the signposts of a long road. God chooses a people and sends them on their way. Starting with Abram: “Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy father's house, and come into the land which I shall show thee. 2 And I will make of thee a great nation.” (Gen 12:1-2). Abram went forth, and became the father of a people that made history along the way, a people on the way towards that which was promised. Us also recently made our way listening to [the telling of] this history of traversing lands and centuries, with our fixed on the paschal event, the definitive Promise made reality, the Living Christ, victor over death, ressurrected. Life in God is not sedentary, it is a life on the road...and even God Himself desired to be on the road, in search of man...and became man. On this night we have traveled both roads: of the people, of man, towards God and that of God to man, both roads leading to an encounter. The anxiousness for God sown in our human heart, that anxiousness of God given as a promise to Abram and, on the other hand, the anxiousness of God's heart, His immeasurable love for us, are to be found here today, before thus paschal event, the figure of Christ Resurrected that resolves in itself all searches and anxiousness, wishes and loves; Christ Resurrected is the goal and triumph of these two roads that meet. This is the night of an encounter...of “Encounter” with capital letters.

2. It is brough to our la attention how teh Gospel we have just heard describes the Encounter of Jesus Christ, Victorious with the women. Nobody stands still...all are in movement, on the move: it is said teh women went, that the earth shook strongly; the Angel came down from Heaven, making the stone roll, the guards trembled. Then, the invitation: He will go to Galilee, that all go to Galilee. The women, with that mix of fear and joy --that is, with their hearts in movement -- back up rapidly and run to spread the news. They encounter Jesus and approach Him and fall to His feet. Movement of the women towards Christ, movement of Christ towards them. In this movement the encounter happens.

3. The Gospel announcement is not relegated to a faraway history of two thousand years ago...it is a reality that repeats itself each time we place ourselves on teh road towards God and we allow ourselves to be met by Him. The Gospel tells of an encounter, a victorious encounter between the faithful God, passionate for His people, and us sinners, thirsty for love and searching, who have [finally] accepted placing ourselves on the road...on the road to find Him...to allow ourselves to be found by Him. In that instant, existential and temporal, we share the experience of the women: fear and joy at the same time; we experience the stupor of an encounter with Jesus Christ which overflows our desires but which never says “stay,” but rather “go.” The encounter relaxes us, strengthens our identity and sends us forth; puts us on the road agains so that, from encounter to encounter, we may reach the definitive encounter.

4. I was recently mentioning that, in the midst of the shadows, our gaze was fixed on the Paschal event, Christ, reality and hope at the same time; reality of an encounter today and hope for the great final encounter. This is good because we breathe losses [literally, "disencounters"] daily; we have become accustomed to living in a culture of loss, in which our passions, our disorientations, enmisties and conflicts confront us, separate [literally, "eliminates our brotherhood"] us, isolate us, crystallize us inside a sterile individualism which is proposed to us as a [viable] way of life daily. The women, that morning, were victims of a painful loss: they had had their Lord taken from them. They found themseles desolate before a sepulchre. That's the way today's cultural paganism, active in the world and our city, wants us: alone, passive, at the end of an illusory path that leads to a sepulchre, dead in our frustration and sterile egotism.

Today we need the strength of God to move us, that we have a great shaking of the earth, that an Angel move the great stone in our heart, that stone that prevents us from heading out on the road, that there is lightning and much light. Today we need our soul shaken, that we're told the idolatry of cultured passivity and possesiveness does not lead [this could also be translated as "give"] to life. Today we need, after being shaken for our many frustrations, to encounter Him anew and that He tell us “Be not afraid,” get back on the road once again, return to that Galilee of your first love. We must renew the marcha begun by our father Abraham and which signals this Paschal event. Today we need to encounter Him; that we find Him and He find us. Brethren, the “Happy Easter” I wish you is that today an Angel rolls away our stone and we allow ourselves to encounter Him. May it be thus.

Cdl. Bergoglio's Lenten Letter, 2013

[As usual, these translation and emphases of Cdl. Bergoglio's homilies and letters are mine.]

And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil. (Joel 2:13)

Little by little we become accustomed to hearing and seeing, through the mass media, the dark chronicle of contemporary society, presented with an almost perverse elation, and also we become [desensitized] to touching it and feeling it all around us [even] in our own flesh.  Drama plays out on the streets, in our neighborhoods, in our homes and -- why not? -- even in our own hearts.  We live alongside a violence that kills, that destroys families, that enlivens wars and conflicts in so many countries of the world.  We live with envy, hatred, slander, the mundane in our heart.

The suffering of the innocent and peaceable buffets us nonstop; the contempt for the rights of the most fragile of people and nations is not so distant from us; the tyrannical rule of money with its demonic effects, such as drugs, corruption, trafficking in people -- even children -- along with misery, both material and moral, are the coin of the realm [today].  The destruction of dignified work, painful emigrations and the lack of a future also join in this [tragic] symphony. 

Our errors and sins as Church are not beyond this analysis.  Rationalizing selfishnesses, does not diminish it, lack of ethical values within a society metastisizes in [our] families, in the environment of [our] neighborhoods, towns and cities, [this lack of ethical values] testifies to our limitations, to our weaknesses and to our incapacity to transform this innumerable list of destructive realities.

The trap of powerlessness makes us wonder:  Does it make sense to try to change all this?  Can we do anything against this?  Is it worthwhile to try, if the world continues its carnival merriment, disguising all [this tragedy] for a little while?  But, when the mask falls, the truth appears and, although to many it may sound anachronistic to say so, once again sin becomes apparent, sin that wounds our very flesh with all its destructive force, twisting the destinies of the world and of the history. 

Lent is presented us as a shout of truth and certain hope that comes us to say "Yes, it is possible to not slap on makeup, and not draw plastic smiles as if nothing happened."  Yes, it is possible that all is made new and different because God remains "rich in kindness and mercy, always willing to forgive" and He encourages us to begin anew time and again.  Today, again, we are invited to undertake a Paschal road toward Life, a path that includes the cross and resignation; a path that will be uncomfortable but not fruitless.  We are invited to admit that something inside us is not going well, (in society or in the Church) to change, to turn around, to be converted.

Today, the words of the prophet Joel are strong and challenging: Rend your heart, not your clothing: be converted to the Lord, your God.  These [words] are an invitation to all people, nobody is excluded.
 
Rend your heart, not the clothing of artificial penance without [an eternal] future. 
Rend your heart, not the clothing of technical fasting of compliance that [only serves to keep us] satisfied. 
Rend your heart, not the clothing of egotistical and superficial prayer that does not reach the inmost part of [your] life to allow it to be touched by God. 

Rend your heart, that we may say with the Psalmist:  "We have sinned." 

"The wound of the soul is sin: Oh, poor wounded one, recognize your Doctor!  Show him the wounds of your faults.  And, since from Him our most secret thoughts cannot hide themselves, make the cry of your heart felt [to Him].  Move him to compassion with your tears, with your insistence ¡beg him!  Let Him hear your sighs, that your pain reaches Him so that, at the end, He can tell you:  The Lord has forgiven your sins."  (St. Gregory the Great)

This is the reality of our human condition.  This is the truth that approaches authentic reconciliation between God and men.  This is not a matter of discrediting [one's] self-worth but of penetrating, to its fullest depth, our heart and to take charge of the mystery of suffering and pain that had tied us down for centuries, for thousands of years, [in fact,] forever. 

Rend your hearts so that through this opening we can truly see. 

Rend your hearts, open your hearts, because only with [such a] heart can we allow the entry of the merciful love of the Father, who loves us and heals us. 

Rend your hearts the prophet says, and Paul asks us -- almost on his knees -- "be reconciled with God."  Changing our way of living is both a sign and fruit of a torn heart, reconciled by a love that overwhelms us.
 
This is [God's] invitation, juxtaposed against so many injuries that wound us and can tempt us temptation to be hardened:  Rend your hearts to experience, in serene and silent prayer, the gentle tenderness of God.

Rend your hearts to hear the echo of so many torn lives, that indifference [to suffering] does not paralyze us. 

Rend your hearts to be able to love with the love with which we are beloved, to console with the consolation with which we are consoled and to share what we have received. 

The liturgical time the Church starts today is not only for us, but also for the transformation of our family, of our community, of our Church, of our Country, of the whole world.  They are forty days so that we may convert to the same holiness as God's; that we become collaborators who receive the grace and the potential to reconstruct human life so that everyone may experience the salvation which Christ won for us by His death and resurrection. 

Next to prayer and penitence, as a sign of our faith in the force of an all-transforming Easter, we also begin, as in previous years a "Lenten Gesture of Solidarity."  As Church in Buenos Aires, marching towards Easter and believing the Kingdom of God is possible we need that, in our hearts torn by the desire of conversion and by love, grace may blossom.  [We need] effective gestures to alleviate the pain of so many of our brothers who walk alongside.  "No act of virtue can be large if it does not also benefit another...  Therefore, no matter how you spend the day fasting, no matter how you may sleep on a hard floor, and how you may eat ashes and sigh continuously, if do not do good to others, you do not accomplish anything great."  (St. John Chrysostom)

This year of faith we are traversing is also an opportunity God gives us to grow and to mature in an encounter with the Lord made visible in the suffering face of so many children without a future, in the trembling hands of the elders who have been forgotten and in the trembling knees of so many families who continue to face life without finding anyone who will assist them. 

I wish you a holy Lent, a penitential and fruitful Lent and, please, I ask you all that you pray for me. 

May Jesus bless you and may the Blessed Virgin care for you. 

Paternally,

Card.  Jorge Mario Bergoglio S.J. 

Advent 2011 homily by H.E. Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, S.J.

[Cdl. Bergoglio ponders the role of the BVM during Advent.]

“But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law: That He might redeem them who were under the law: that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying: 'Abba, Father.' Therefore now he is not a servant, but a son. And if a son, an heir also through God.” (Galatians 4:4-7)

“And Ozias the prince of the people of Israel, said to her: 'Blessed art thou, O daughter, by the Lord the most high God, above all women upon the earth. Blessed be the Lord who made heaven and earth, who hath directed thee to the cutting off the head of the prince of our enemies. Because he hath so magnified thy name this day, that thy praise shall not depart out of the mouth of men who shall be mindful of the power of the Lord for ever, for that thou hast not spared thy life, by reason of the distress and tribulation of thy people, but hast prevented our ruin in the presence of our God.'” (Judith 13: 23-25)

“And the third day, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee: and the mother of Jesus was there. And Jesus also was invited, and his disciples, to the marriage. And the wine failing, the mother of Jesus saith to Him: 'They have no wine.' And Jesus saith to her: 'Woman, what is that to me and to thee? my hour is not yet come.' His mother saith to the waiters: 'Whatsoever He shall say to ye, do ye.'

Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three measures apiece. Jesus saith to them: 'Fill the waterpots with water.' And they filled them up to the brim. And Jesus saith to them: 'Draw out now, and carry to the chief steward of the feast.' And they carried it. And when the chief steward had tasted the water made wine, and knew not whence it was, but the waiters knew who had drawn the water; the chief steward calleth the bridegroom, And saith to him: 'Every man at first setteth forth good wine, and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse. But thou hast kept the good wine until now.'
This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee; and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him." (John 2:1-11)

Today's liturgy has a decidedly temporal accent: the time established, the fullness of time, three days, the hour… This takes us from the “eternal time” of God to the smallest moment of men; this is God's own style, said in more illustrative language, the “divine eterno-temporal” which, throughout our history, superimposes a “catholic eterno-temporal”: “non coerceri a maximo contineri tamen a mimimo divinum est” (Cf. S.Th. III, q.1, art.1, obj.4). These hearinsg we have heard are part of the compendium of salvation history, from the greatest to the least, in which appear the marvels of redemption: the sending of the divine Son, but born of a woman and in tiny Bethlehem (Cf. Mic. 5:2), tine in all its fullness, yet contained in that moment, those waterpots used for the rites of purification become vessels of that new wine, and at the sametime, also vessels of the promise of that other wine; litres of water that, as the poet wrote, upon gazing on the face of the Lord, blushed.


At one time all becomes concrete: from the Word, eternal like the Father, conceived in the womb of the Virgin, to the wedding feast as the first sign of Jesus with the changing of water into wine. There isn't any room for any type of gnosticism or “heroic” pelagianism. All is grace, tangible grace, poured forth out of love. All is concrete: there is a mother, there is the Son born of a woman, there are friends and disciples. The mother points out, intercedes and finally disposes...but [only] in reference to the Son: “do whatever He tells you.” It is fitting, then, that in the [physical] space of Cana, the eternal Word should speak the word of the moment. And that Word, in which all things were created (cf. Col. 1: 16), in which all things subsist (ibid. 17), is concerned with six waterpots, and grants the rank collaborators of this sign of salvation to the servants of the banquet. The great and the small together…and the mediation of that mother who makes possibile the dialogue between the two, the eternal and the temporal, that God may continue to involve Himself in our comings and goings.
Because God had a desire to enter, in a human way in our history, He needed a mother, and He asked us for one. She is the mother at whom we gaze upon today, the daughter of our people, the handmaid, the pure, the one who is solely God's; the one who is discreet so her Son may realize that sign, the one who is always making possible that reality, but not as its author or even its protagonist, but as that handmaid; the nightime star that dims herself that the sun may be manifested. Such is the mediation of Mary about whom we refer today. Mediation of a woman who does not que no renege on her maternity, who has assumed from the very beginning; maternity with dual births, one in Bethlehem and teh other at Calvary; maternity that contains and accompanies the friends of her Son, who is her only reference point until the end of days.
And so Mary remains among us, “situated at the very centre of that ‘emnisty’ of the protevangelium, of that struggle which accompanies the history of the human race.” (Cf. Redempt. Mater 11). [She is the] Mother who makes possible the spaces for the arrival of Grace. That Grace that revolutionizes and transforms our existence and our identity: the Holy Spirit who makes us adoptive children, liberates us from all slavery, [and] in a very real and mystical way, grants us the gift of liberty; and which clamors, from within us, the invocation of our new belongingness: "Father!"

Today we venerate her as Mother and Serviant, she who precedes Christ on the horizon of salvation history (Cf. Redempt. Mater, 3), who accompanies the Church which, comforted by the [Real] Presence of Christ, walks throughout time towards the consummation of all time, towards an encounter with the Lord and, on this path, proceeds to walk anew the course walked by the Virgin Mary, "who advanced in that pilgrimage of faith and faithfully mantained union with her Son unto the Cross." (cf. ibid, 2). of her we ask that she, as a good Mother who knows how to straighten things, make room in our heart that amidst the abundance of sin, the grace of the Spirit may be superabundant...which makes us both free and sons.

Reflecting and contemplating on these realities which strengthen and console, on this day when we mediate on the cause of our joy, let us apermit ourselves, with both audacity and familiarity normal for sons and daughters, flatter and praise her with the words of Scripture: “Blessed art thou, O daughter, by the Lord the most high God, above all women upon the earth. Blessed be the Lord who made heaven and earth, who hath directed thee to the cutting off the head of the prince of our enemies. Because he hath so magnified thy name this day, that thy praise shall not depart out of the mouth of men who shall be mindful of the power of the Lord for ever, for that thou hast not spared thy life, by reason of the distress and tribulation of thy people, but hast prevented our ruin in the presence of our God.” (Judith 13: 23-25)

Cdl. Bergoglio's Ash Wednesday 2011 Homily

As you may recall, Cdl. Bergoglio scores pretty big with me. Here is his Ash Wednesday 2011 homily.

(As usual, the translation is mine.)

It captures our attention, the kindness with which He touches our hearts today. It is a maternal tenderness: Return to God, allow yourself to be reconciled to God, harden not your heart, listen to the voice of the Lord. Show yourself, as you are, to the presence of God: as a sinner…and empty out your heart, make room for the Lord to enter. The Church speaks to us as a mother and she wants us to start this Lenten time with this goal, to walk towards the Lord. Towards an encounter with the Lord. That encounter that takes place within our heart. For this purpose: to cleanse our hearts of all those things which distract us from this encounter, or disturbe us from this encounter. In the Gospel, Jesus tells us: "Look, this is not about dressing up your soul, but, rather, about changing it…with almsgiving…with fasting…that is, thinking with attitudes of service and dethachment…and with prayer, which is a petition to God. Alms, fasting or penance and prayer. To make room in your soul and to bring forth an encounter with the Lord.

But watch out! Do not do this for the sake of appearances because the enemy of the Christian is hypocrisy; Jesus wants us with an open heart, He ought not find us with hypocritical attitudes and thus He tells us:

“Look, cleanse your heart of weeds.”
"But how, Lord?"
“With prayer, penance and almsgiving.”
"Ah…but that's hard!"

Yes it is, like pulling weeds. That way your heart prepares for that encounter with the Lord. Return to God, allow yourself to be reconciled to God, harden not your heart, listen to the voice of the Lord. Make a place for Him in your heart, by means of prayer, penancand almsgiving, that He may come to you.

That's the invitation extended to you by the Church today, at the start of Lent; and the ashes imposed on us by the Church reminds us what a vanity is anything else that is not Jesus, the Lord. And we approach to receive teh ashes with that great desire to return to the Lord, to convert ourselves for Him, to harden not our heart, to listen to the voice of the Lord, to make a place in our heart where we might encounter the Lord.

Cdl. Bergoglio's Homily on modern slavery

ActionJesuit® H.E. Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, SJ had a very forceful homily earlier this month.
Here is the video:

Here is my translation:
The Word of God is strong. It is God who says us: "Shout forcefully and without fear. Shout forcefully and without fear. Raise your voice like trumpet and denounce my people of its wickedness." Be not afraid. Fear not to speak the truth even if the Truth hurts. Even if it is embarrassing, today we join to face each other. Look at each other in the face and say: "You have dignity, and they want to take it from you." And to shout. Today we join to feel stronger because in this city in which we live, they want to weaken us, they want to take away our strength, they want to steal our dignity.

Last year, in a similar Mass to this we had in a church of La Boca, it came from my heart to say that in this city of Buenos Aires, so pretty, so ours, there are slaves. Today I am going to repeat it again. And today we come to look each other in the face to tell ourselves: "If you fight, if I fight with you, if we look at ourselves and we fight together, there will be less slaves." Last year I said in this city of Buenos Aires, and with a lot of pain I said it, are some who "fit" in this system and those who are "excess," those who do not fit, the ones for whom there is no work, nor bread nor dignity. And those those who are "excess" are material to discard because this city of Buenos Aires "discards" those people and we are full of "existential dump trucks," of men and women that are disregarded...

"Anything else for Father to say?"... Yes. Somewhat worse still: these men and women, boys and girls, who do not fit, who are discardable material , who are disregarded, are treated as merchandise. They are objects of trade. And today we can say that in this city the secret workshops, with the "cardboarders, in the world of drugs, in the world of prostitution, human trafficking exists. Therefore the Word of God says us: "Shouts with force and without fear" and I today say:" We shout with force and without fear." No to the slavery. No to the ones considered excess. No to the youth, men and women as discardable material. Is our very flesh that is in jeopardy! It is our very flesh that is sold! The same flesh I have, that you have, is for sale! And you will not be moved [to compassion] for the flesh of your brother? "No, he is not the same as I"... He is your brother, he is your flesh.

Today God says to us the same thing He told Cain! "Cain: where is your brother?" (He had killed him). And Cain with great cynicism, answers Him: "What do I know? Am I my brother's keeper?" This great city of Buenos Aires answers this same way many times! "What do I care? Do I have to take care of everything?” He is your brother, your flesh, your blood!

We have hardened, we have lost our heart. Buenos Aires forgot how to cry because it sells its children, Buenos Aires forgot how to cry because excludes its children, Buenos Aires forgot how to cry because it enslaves its children...

And today we look each other in the face. Some will be able to say: "Well, the priest is going to tell us to pray." The only thing that I tell you today is look each other in the face, recognize our brother's dignity and fight so that dignity survives. And that we open the heart to the weeping, to that weeping that asks pardon for the crime of trading in people. And I am not inventing things, because I was listening what you have told me: the secret workshops [sweatshops], forcing of minors into prostitution, drug trafficking...

It is a system of corruption that covers and allows all this be possible.

Then brothers and sisters, let us be together in this. We all have something we can give each other. Together we fight so that this city recognizes where it has fallen... and that it weeps, and rights itself ... and that there be justice. Together let us say that is worthwhile to struggle so that in Buenos Aires we will have no more slavery... [and] there is a lot of slavery. Because that is what God asks us today: "Shout with force and without fear. Raise your voice as a trumpet." And face everyone who [participates] in that infernal machine of exclusion, that infernal machine to discard people and denounce its conduct and we ask that God change their heart.

And to those who we want to fight for this, that God may continue us giving strength and bravery so that Buenos Aires weeps over its injustice, weeps over its baseness, weep it has become the mother of slaves. That God grant us the grace of this conscience and of the light. May it be thus.

Compare and contrast

One of the things which drive me mental -- which I realize does not narrow it down in the least -- is a weak-tea, half@$$-ed, namby-pamby, enuretic approach to a confrontation. I speak of course, of the average* bishop's approach to politicians who misrepresent and challenge and pretend they don't dissent from essential Church teaching. Partly it's because many of the unfortunates who have been elevated to the episcopacy are of the "seamless [cough, cough] garment" variety and are more or less willing to overlook egregious dissent and scandal by virtue of being amenable to Sen. _____'s or Gov. _____'s seamless garments in prudential matters. Partly it's because some others are not confrontational people or have greater faith in a given politician's capacity for reconsideration.

So, it's refreshing to see a guy like Cdl. Bergoglio, who is unafraid to proclaim and defend the essentials of faith with conviction and boldness, regardless of the displeasure it causes the gummint (in Cdl. Bergoglio's case, a whack-job leftist cadre with all that entails) or the Modern Advanced People.

AMDG,

-J.

* Admittedly, there are a few who are well above average.

Cdl. Bergoglio's Palm Sunday Homily

One of my fave Cardinals, His Eminence Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, SJ has just had his Palm Sunday homily released. Translation is mine as are emphases and comments.

AMDG,

-J.
+++++++++++++++++
At the start, in the blessing of the palms, we heard the Gospel narrative of when Jesus enters the city, enters Jerusalem. The crowds go to receive him. They had much love for the Lord. The people go to receive him because He enters triumphantly but also with humility. The feasting is done by the crowd, He does not organize it. This is proper to Jesus: He never organizes a feast for Himself. He goes. He enters houses, enters towns, and enters cities and it is the crowd that seeks Him out, with rejoicing. Out there, people who did not know they would see Him, encounter Him along the way and then and there they rejoice and laud him. And on a day like this, when the Pharisees tell Him to make the little ones -- and the big ones, too -- stop chanting "blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna," He tells them: "Look, if they shut up, then the stones would yell." The Lord was like that: simple, humble and He provoked joy, enthusiasm, peace of heart.
Today we have wanted to, as Christians, do something similar. Not just the ceremony here but also that Jesus symbolically entered the city -- one column processing from Once, another from Liniers, came into the city on those trucks you see there -- on His colt, and the crowd stood up, the crowd greeted and the crowd asked for blessings. The blessing of the Lord. Jesus goes out to meet people, instead of waiting for people to come looking for Him. He goes out to be encountered. Today is the day Jesus goes to be met and He enters the city. Many Christians today have also gone out, in the name of Jesus, to meet the sick in the hospitals[, etc.]...the Church spills into the street because today Jesus is the king of the street, as He was that Palm Sunday in Jerusalem. The place to worship Jesus on this day, more than a temple, is the street. There he was acclaimed, there He was blessed, there He was recognized as the Lord. Out in the street. Later, on Friday, in the corridors of power, among the groups of influence, He was bought and sold [i.e., His fate was debated and decided] H.E. may have been making a reference to the rather Christian-unfriendly attitudes and policies of the Argentine government. But where the people are faithful, where the people are believing, out in the street, He was acclaimed.
Today, here in Buenos Aires, like in Jerusalem on that day, the street made way for Jesus. The street received Him properly. The crowd stood, begged for blessings, blessings for their families, blessings for their businesses, their houses, their autos...H.E. is making a wry reference to the fact Argentines are notoriously car-crazy. Blessing, what does that [really] mean? [It means] that Jesus "speak well" of something, that He approach! That He enter families, hearts, homes, autos, businesses...Jesus out in the street, interacting with the crowd...There. His desire is, just as the gates of the city were opened to Him, the same is done with the doors to our hearts. Every Holy Week He asks the same thing: "Open your heart to Me. I'm not here to mortify you! I'm not here to boss you around! I'm not here to take anything from you...I'm here to give you everything. I want to make you happy." That's what He's telling us. If we slam the doors to our hearts in His face, He suffers. Although He is used to it, He suffers. And we lose the opportunity to become happy.
We say that today the Church has spilled out into the street, to imitate that Palm Sunday, but also to affirm that today, in a special way and by extension, the place for Christ is out in the street. The Gospels tell us He would go to the temple, that He would go to the synagogue, but they also tell us he was on the roads, in the cities, in the streets. Today the place for Christ is the street; the place for the Christian is the street. The Lord wants us like Him: with an open heart, roaming the streets of Buenos Aires. He wants us walking the streets of Buenos Aires and carrying His message! Like Him, on the road and on the street. He doesn't want us hoarding His word just for ourselves, locked inside our own hearts, our own house, or in the temple, instead that we spill His word on the street. He wants us walking out on the street. H.E. uses a rather, er, colloquial slang term for this, by the way.
We look to Jesus, Whom we welcomed today into the city and Whom we'll accompany during this whole week, until His glorious resurrection, and we ask Him: Jesus, show me [how] to open my heart. Jesus, send Your Holy Spirit to open my heart. Send Your Holy Spirit to this city that it may open its streets, its homes, its families. Jesus, teach me to go out on the street and shout like those, on that day in Jerusalem: Blessed are You who come to save us in the name of God. May it be thus.

I disagree to such an extent I had to resort to blogging about it.

Dear Internet,

Yes. I know. I've let the place run down a bit. Twitter, you see. Facebook, too. These have eaten up my bloggy content in small snippets and leaving nothing for me to compose into the more long-form stuff you see in the blogosphere.

I've also been jaded by the writings of Professional Catholics who, with one or two* exceptions, have kind of ruined it for me. Especially a couple with whom it has been my calamitous misfortune to interact with when they were in mufti, as it were.

But every once in a** while, something crosses my radar and what I wish to respond thereto finds inadequate voice in the shorter Facebookish, Tweety forms.

I refer to a piece by Fr. Thomas Reese, SJ in the National Catholic Reporter regarding a vacancy in the Congregation for Divine Worship. No secrets will be betrayed in my stating openly and from the very start that I vigorously disagree with Fr. Reese in this matter, almost to the point -- not quite -- of disagreeing with the choice of font.

But even that was a close-run thing.

Father speaks, as seems to be the case for those who are adherents of his position, of "liturgical renewal." Me, personally, whenever that phrase rises to my consciousness, I regard the concept undergirding it with sheer, trembling dread.

As someone whose formative years in the faith were punctuated by episodic spasms of liturgical renewal, hearing that phrase makes me wonder if the finally-dormant tic will come back.

If I may take the liberty of interpreting Father's point through the prism of my own experience, in my considered opinion, traveling once more down such a road will be -- let me not mince my words -- catastrophic. Father rues that such renewal efforts were stalled by the pontificates of St. John Paul II and of Benedict XVI, for whose papacies I am inexpressibly grateful.

The one thing one finds unmentioned is what is the wellspring for liturgical renewal. In other words, what is the "charter" for it? The answer one generally gets is "Why, Vatican Two." Fr. Reese himself says as much when he notes that greater liturgical authority be devolved to the local episcopal conferences when he states "[...]which was the original intent of Vatican II, rather than micromanaging things from Rome."

However, the documents of the II Vatican Council don't quite call for the sorts of things generally seen under the auspices of liturgical renewal. Kind of when you read about "solidarity" without even a hint of "subsidiarity."

Father also rues that said liturgical renewal is not a priority for the Holy Father. I agree with him the Holy Father seems to be aggressively disinterested in same. However, I am of the opinion this is a welcome situation.

At this point I must interject and offer you, dear Internet, some Complete And Full Disclosure. As one of the graphics at the top of this here blog states, I am an orthodox Catholic educated by Jesuits. I love Pope Francis. I loved him when he was Cdl. Bergoglio. (But I am on record that, on matters liturgical, the Holy Father's path and mine diverge.) I love the Jesuits even when they go, um, a bit, er, off-piste. I am a lower-case-T traditionalist. I am not an adherent, follower or otherwise especially enamored of, say, Rorate Cæli or its fellow travelers. My parish's "usual" Mass is vernacular Novus Ordo with generous lashings of Latin. But I make it a point to hear Mass in the Extraordinary Form whenever it's available, because I believe that a) its very existence, and b) many elements therefrom are on the whole beneficial to the Faith and the faithful. (My current predilection is for Novus Ordo in Latin, but that's just me.)

The above point to other areas of Father's piece with which I must also seriously disagree.
Father notes: "The purpose of liturgical reform is not only to translate old Latin texts into good English, but to revise liturgical practices to allow people to celebrate their Christian faith in ways that better fit contemporary culture."

I disagree, quite strongly. Rather, I'd suggest, the purpose of liturgical reform should be to allow the faithful to worship God in a way that will prove transcendent and transformative. Insightful readers of my (admittedly, of late, sporadic) works will note that fitting contemporary culture is something I would declare to be avoided as assiduously as one would ISIS personnel juggling mason jars of ebola. To my way of thinking, there are vast expanses of contemporary culture that are sharply at odds with Christianity and I see no advantage -- and the disadvantages, I'd venture to add, are legion -- to conformity therewith.

Another exception I take with Father in this matter is the phrase "to translate old Latin texts into good English." Habitual readers of this blog will note that I am adamant about the importance of accurate translations. Why? Because the farther we get away from accuracy in translations, the more power we place in the hands of the translator*** and the more power we strip away from the person being translated. And that, as my particular hobbyhorse of choice amply demonstrates, is always and everywhere a monumentally, colossally bad thing.

(A cynical person will note that often these sorts of inexact translations have a tendency to skew one way, ideologically speaking. Not I, you understand, but a cynical person.)

Father is also not, it seems pellucidly clear, a fan of Mass in the Extraordinary Form. Which is fine. We live in a pluralist society and live-and-let-live and all that. Fine.

But there are people who are especially attached**** to the Extraordinary Form, the overwhelming majority of which simply wish to have it reasonably available to them and all those others like them. No provision for pastoral care for them seems to be in the offing. In fact, it's not difficult for them to consider calls for liturgical renewal such as Fr. Reese's as being the long-form of "Tough. Get used to it." While Father seeks to justify some of his points under the "pastoral" mantle, no pastoral concern(as it were) is ever offered, by proponents of liturgical renewal, to those who prefer the Extraordinary Form, that I can see.

Father also suggests an R&D approach to liturgy that would, in my estimation, yield a bespoke Mass depending on when/where one happens to go to Mass and who the celebrant is that day. I cannot overemphasize my disagreement with this. Mass is not a R&D department, the Church is not a business, and the faithful are not a focus group. This approach will only emphasize and underline the rootlessness many (including, during the Wilderness Years, yr. obdt. svt.) Catholics feel. For whatever may be said about the Extraordinary Form, the fact remains it's exactly the same everywhere in the world. The faithful in Bangalore, Barcelona, Baltimore, Bali and Brasilia are all united not only in the faith they profess, but also are reminded of that unity by the very fact they are all experiencing the same words, in the same way.

To say nothing of the fact that the approach Fr. Reese suggests will yield an even more celebrant-centric liturgical culture.

(How one may reconcile Father's suggestion for an even more kaleidoscopic and fragmented liturgical landscape with his suggestion that more accurate translations are beyond the ken of many is a sealed book to me.)

Another concern, which is never voiced in these discussions, is the subject of beauty and banality. A very strong case can be made that liturgical banality and the arid dearth of catechesis have proven to be a grave blow to Catholicism. Throughout my life, every single development of liturgical renewal has been, and there's no way around it, the equivalent to the white cop trying to be cool on Sanford & Sons.

The record of liturgical renewalists and that which they have wrought is not, y'know, exactly glorious. By any objective measure, the last 50 years have seen a precipitous fall in all of the markers which we would consider good (and rise in the ones we'd consider bad): Mass attendance, membership in religious life, seminary enrollment, greater breakdowns of Catholic marriages, greater use of artificial contraception, greater number of abortions, etc.

Lastly, as mentioned above, Father suggests greater episcopal involvement in the Congregation. My issue with this (and not because I am rabidly ultramontane) is that it's these very episcopal offices, etc. which, when St. John Paul II asked them specifically to respond generously to requests for greater availability of Mass in the Extraordinary Form, almost uniformly failed to do so.

So, my prayer is the Holy Father, if he is not to further advance the "reform of the reform" at least there will be no further liturgical damage.

AMDG,

-J.

* Okay, three. But that's my last offer and I am not making a penny on the deal.
** long
*** "Tradutore, traditore." (Your translator is your traitor.)
**** While I am not especially attached to Mass in the Extraordinary Form, I am attached to it, I believe it enriches the worship life of all the faithful, even those who only hear Mass in the Ordinary Form in their vernacular.

Quick note, on how humility works.

For reasons which God'll understand eleventy squajillion times better than I do, you'll recall, I've translated a few pieces from then-Cdl. Bergoglio/now-Pope Francis. Which is fine and great and all that.

That has led to my being contacted by some Professional Catholics® on this matter, seeing as how, if someone should squint REALLY hard he can convince himself I am some sort of "expert" on the Holy Father. (I am not, by any means.)

But it is cool to be quoted in the various places as someone with some insight on the thinking of the Pope.

So I was feeling extra-special good about my 15 minutes of fame until I ran across this gem in a combox that put me in my place:

You should try and get his Lenten Letter for this year [LINK] and his 2008 Palm Sunday Homily [LINK] They are great. Though unofficial and rough translations, they give one a sense of his thought and preaching. Perhaps someone could re-translate or touch up these translations.

Ouch!

AMDG,

-J.

P.S. I will grant that my typing is rough...

This is the Catechesis of His Eminence Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, SJ at the 49th International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec (all translation is mine, all boldface is His Eminence's, all emphasis and comments are mine):

“The Eucharist: Gift from God for the life of the world.” The theme selected by this Pope for this 49th International Eucharistic Congress comes [to us] from the Gospel of St. John, from the passage in which Jesus our Lord proclaims: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven(…) and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world.” (Jn 6:51-52)

The Eucharist, gift from God, who wishes to give life to all, is a central theme of the Encyclical “Sacramentum Caritatis.” In the first part – “Eucharist, mystery to be believed” -- the Pope exhorts us to the adoration of the Eucharist as a “Free gift of the Most Holy Trinity for the life of the world”. And, at the end, in the third part – “Eucharist, mystery to be lived” -- he exhorts us to offer ourselves eucharistically to others, along with the Lord, given that “the vocation of each one of us consists of being, along with Jesus, bread broken for the life of the world.” The Eucharist, then, gift and task, gift of life that is received and gift of life that is given to all.

This life in Jesus Christ, “that those peoples in Him may have life,” is also what beats in the heart of the Document of Aparecida [the meeting of the Latin American bishops], with a tone of grateful praise and with missionary fervor, given that: “Life is a gift from God, gift and task…”

“The Eucharist is the vital center of the universe, capable of satisfying the hunger for life and happiness: “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.” (Jn 6:57). In this happy banquet we participate in eternal life and, thus, our daily existence becomes a prolonged Mass. (as St Alberto Hurtado, SJ used to say).

In the middle, between the gift and the mission, the Church is the central motive of this catechesis for today: The Eucharist and the Church, mystery of the Covenant.

Simply put, I propose three steps to make this catechesis a “lectio divina.” The first step is a brief meditation on the Covenant. The second step, I wish for it to be a contemplative synthesis in which we remain looking and enjoying with the eyes of our hearts some images of the Virgin, our Lady, “[the] eucharistic woman.” And the third step will consist in drawing some pastoral conclusions that may be of help in our personal and ecclesial life.

1. The ecclesial and nuptial dimension of the Eucharist

“The Eucharist and the Church, mystery of the covenant.” With the term “covenant” is intended to place in [bold] relief the ecclesial and nuptial dimension of the gift of the Eucharist, gift through which the Lord wishes to reach all men. The Eucharist is living bread given for the life of the world and blood of the covenant shed for the pardon of the sins of all men. Having, then, our hearts firmly [grounded] in the gratuitous [i.e., in the sense of "free"] nature of the gift and in its universal missionary dynamism, we pause [to meditate upon] in the mystery of the Covenant.

The Covenant nothing nor anyone can break

“Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rm 8:35) The first thing which moves us about the Eucharist is that it deals with a “new and everlasting” Covenant, as the Lord said at the Last Supper. This is expressed by the Liturgy in the Eucharistic Prayer of Reconciliation: “Many times, we men have broken Your covenant, but You, instead of abandoning us, seal it anew with the human family, through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, a compact so solid, that nothing will ever be able to break it.”

The desire for a Covenant that no person or thing could break was something the Lord kneaded through the centuries in the heart of Israel, and Jesus fulfills this desire and perfects it in such a way that there is no room for rupture.

In this solidity of the Covenant a central role is played by its institution prior to the Passion. By preemptively giving Himself at the Last Supper, the Lord transforms the moment and place in which covenants are broken (the moment of the treason by Judas) in the kairos –- of holy time and space -- where this new Covenant is sealed forever.

The eucharistic anticipation

To meditate on this mystery let us take as a guide some of the insights from John Paul II, which will help us to see importance of this Eucharistic “anticipation.” Decia John Paul the most fervent desire of his Encyclical “The Church lives from Eucharist” was to inspire “Eucharistic awe.” That the Lord has instituted the Eucharist prior to the Passion was and is the principal motive for [that] awe. Let us read a few lines “with the eyes of the soul,” as John Paul said:

“Of the paschal mystery the Church is born. Precisely for this [reason] the Eucharist, that is the sacrament par excellence of the paschal mystery, is at the center of ecclesial life...after two thousand years we still reproduce that primordial image of the Church. And, while we do so at the eucharistic celebration, the eyes of the soul are directed towards the paschal Triduum: to that which occurred on the evening of that Holy Thursday, during the Last Supper and after it. The institution of the Eucharist, in effect, anticipated sacramentally the events that would take place later, beginning with the agony in Gethsemane.

We see Jesus emerge from the Cenacle, descending with the disciples, traversing the stream of Cedron and at the Garden of Olives. In that garden there are, even today, some very ancient olive trees. Perhaps they were witness to what happened under their shade that fateful evening, when Christ, in prayer, experienced a mortal anguish and “And his sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground” (Lk 22:44). The blood, that shortly beforehand had been given to the Church as drink of salvation in the eucharistic Sacrament, began to be shed; its effusion would be completed afterwards at Golgotha, becoming an instrument of our redemption.

Further ahead, John Paul reveals how the title of this Encyclical came about:

“‘Mysterium fidei! – Mystery of faith!’ when the priest pronounces or chants these words, those present proclaim: ‘Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.’ With these or similar words, the Church, at the the same time it is referring to Christ in the mystery of His Passion, also reveals its own mystery: Ecclesia de Eucharistia.”

Here it is we find three three spatial-temporal characteristics that make the Eucharist the most intimate nucleus in the life (as gift and task) of the Church:

“If, with the descent [literally “gift”] of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Church is born and begins to walk the roads of the world, a decisive moment of its foundation is certainly the institution of the Eucharist in the Cenacle. Its foundation and starting point is the whole Paschal Triduum, but this is included, anticipated, and “concentrated” forever in the eucharistic gift. In this gift, Jesus Christ gave to the Church the perennial actualization of the paschal mystery. He instituted a mysterious “contemporaneousness” between that Triduum and the passage of all the centuries.”

John Paul ends this paragraph marveling and surprising us with the “redemptory capacity” (in which “all of history” enters, that is: all the life of the world) of this event:

“This thought brings us to feelings of great awe and gratitude. The paschal event and the Eucharist that actualizes it throughout the centuries have a “truly enormous capacity,” in which all history enters as intended beneficiary of the grace of redemption.”

Included/anticipated/concentrated

This insight of John Paul II’s is very original and its formulation consists of a difficult [literally, “straitened”] synthesis. How to derive benefit from it without depleting it? I am thinking we ought attempt to enter through the pedagogical side. The Lord shows a pedagogical intention in the washing of the feet, when He says: “I being your Lord and Master [...] have given you an example …” (Jn 13:13-15). Therefore, we may well ask ourselves what is the pedagogical value contained in “inclusion-anticipation and concentration” of the Paschal Triduum in the Eucharistic gift? I am prompted to say that the intention of the Lord aims to dispose and condition the “recipient” of the Gift: the heart of the disciples to its personal and ecclesial dimension.

In anticipating His self-giving [and] including His friends in the communion of the Last Supper and concentrating all His love in the Eucharistic gift, the Lord succeeds in, when they become aware (each of them in due course) of what He offered in the Passion, likewise realize what they had already received, that they had already been made participants of that redemptive sacrifice. The desire of the Lord for the Covenant, His self-giving without reservation by expiring on the Cross, becomes manifest [to the disciples] not as an isolated and terminal incident, instead flooding their memory of that which they contemplate – of Mary, of John and of the saintly women, and later of the whole Church – with each and all of the acts [literally, “gestures”] of self-giving of the Lord (that spent time doing nothing but good) and, in the most special manner, filling the memory of the faithful with His Eucharistic self-giving at the Last Supper. Otherwise, the final act would have distanced us. It would have been a total, but unilateral, act of God, without there being a recipient worthy of receiving. The new wine would have burst the old wineskins…

But no, the act of total self-giving of the Lord on the Cross enters in the new wineskins of the hearts which had already received and pretasted the Eucharist. A Eucharist that “concentrates” the Passion giving it an “adequate proportion” to our capacity, so to speak. For this the whole Passion could and should be seen as salvific, because those who contemplate it are already “included,” in communion with the saving love that beats within the Lord feeling such. In that sense we are able to contemplate the washing of the feet as an act of purification (writ small) that counterweighs the effusion of redemptive blood on the Cross. The tension between great and small, between the mundane and the exceptional concentrates the Love of the Lord and places it at the disposition of our faith, preventing our understanding from skewing towards the overly extraordinary or being diluted by the overly ordinary.

There is a profound similarity to this in the formula of the sacrament of Christian matrimony, in that the spouses mutually selfgive and promise each other fidelity embracing – including, anticipating and concentrating to themselves – all that might occur in life: health and infirmity, prosperity and adversity. As an image of the Covenant of Christ that is presaged in the Eucharist, the spouses presage Love and make it inclusive of all, in such a manner that the Covenant is irrevocable.

New wineskins

God is [a] gift. And, in order for [this gift] to be capable of being given, the Lord goes about conforming the vessel [literally, “recipient”] in a manner appropriate to the gift, a vessel that will not break, the new wineskin. A vessel that is the fruit of a Covenant between grace and liberty. From this perspective of the “vessel” we can contemplate “the mystery of the Covenant between the Eucharist and the Church.”

Let us fix, then, our attention on this point: In the Eucharist we are transformed by what we eat, as written in Lumen Gentium quoting St. Leo the Great: “The participation of the body and blood of Christ causes us to pass into becoming that which we receive. In eating the Body of Christ the Lord, although He is made our size, He is not “reduced” The miracle of the Eucharist consists in that the “clay jar” begins to assimilate the “treasure,” instead of what happens in nature. In receiving the Eucharist, we are the ones assimilated to Christ. In this manner, through giving Himself over to be eaten as Bread of life, the Lord starts making the Church. He begins transforming within His Body – in a process of mysterious and hidden assimilation as it is completely given over to the process of nourishment – at the same time, whenever this process can count with the free “yes” of the Church, that assents in faith to the Covenant offered by her Spouse, it transforms into His bride.

2. Views of Mary, Eucharistic woman

To better contemplate this mystery of the Covenant, we must be centered on Mary. Once again, we are aided by the vision of John Paul II, who invites to enter “In the school of Mary, Eucharistic woman.”:

“If we wish to discover, in all its richness, the intimate relationship that unites Church and Eucharist, we cannot forget Mary, Mother and model of the Church [...] Effectively, Mary can guide us towards this Blessed Sacrament because she has a profound relationship with it.”

In the manner of the Russian nesting dolls where the larger figure includes within itself others which are smaller but, essentially identical, let us proceed directly to the “tiniest,” to our Lady, to see how what is manifested within her – the mystery of the Covenant that allows the gift of God to be accepted and communicated for the life of the world – is shown in the universal Church and in each soul. We follow the dictum of the Fathers according to which, with different shadings, “what is said universally of the Church, is said in a special way of Mary and individually of each faithful soul.”

In the relationship between Mary and the Eucharist we can see three images that reveal to us characteristics of the Covenant that we can later apply to the universal Church and to our own soul in particular.

The Covenant as company

The first Eucharistic image of Mary shows her to us as “included” in the Church, which at the same time, mysteriously, she includes in her smallness. The Pope makes a note of the “participation” of Mary in the Eucharists of the first community:

“She was with the Apostles, ‘with one mind in prayer’ (Acts 1:14), in the first community gathered after the Ascension in wait of Pentecost. This presence of hers, certainly, could not be lacking in the Eucharistic celebrations of the faithful of the first Christian generation, assiduous ‘in the breaking of bread’ (Acts 2:42).”

The community of Apostles perseveres in prayer with one spirit “in company” with Mary:

“And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James of Alpheus, and Simon Zelotes, and Jude the brother of James. 14 All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus...” (Acts 1:13-14).

The mystery of the Covenant between God and men is a mystery of “company,” of sharing bread, of “being with” others, in family, at table, mystery of fellowship continued. This company is appropriate to the pedagogy of the Lord, which transforms each person as with the disciples of Emmaus, as He accompanies them on the road.

The Covenant as confidence

The second Eucharistic image of Mary shows us the bride who places all her confidence in her Spouse. John Paul II accentuates the “interior Eucharistic attitude” with which Mary lives all her life, attitude that correctly defines “abandoning to the Word.” Mary concentrates within herself all “doing” with respect to the Word. The abandonment implies a “not doing,” appropriate of of someone fully disposed to receive a gift – the “be it done to me according to thy Word.” The abandonment also implies a “doing,” appropiate of someone who gives herself without calculation or measure and exhorts others to do likewise –“...do whatever he tells you.”

For the Church and for each one of us:

“Living in the Eucharist the memorial of the death of Christ implies also receiving continually this gift. It signifies taking with us – following the example of John – she who was given to us a Mother. It also means assuming, at the same time, the committment of conforming ourselves to Christ, learning from His Mother and allowing ourselves to be accompanied by her.”

This total confidence and this obedience in faith makes the Heart of Mary the perfect vessel for the Word to become flesh and to, at its own pace, transform her fully.

The Covenant as hope

The third Eucharistic image of Mary shows us something quite proper to the Covenant that consists in living in anticipation – in hope – what is promise. John Paul makes reference to the mystery of “anticipation,” when he stated:

“Preparing day by day for Calvary, Mary lives a sort of ‘Eucharist anticipation’ one could say, a ‘spiritual comunion’ of desire and offering, that culminates in the union with the Son in the Passion and will manifest itself later in the post-Paschal period, in her participation in the Eucharistic celebration, presided by the Apostles, as ‘memorial’ of the passion.”

Desire and self-offering are the two anticipatory attitudes that convert the Church and also each faithful soul into “new wineskins.” By desire and self-offering we become, like Mary, vessels suitable for the Word to take on flesh within us. The humble and hidden presence of the Lord in Mary, in the Church and in each soul, radiates light and hope to the world. John Paul expresses this beautifully, speaking of the Visitation:

“‘And blessed art thou that hast believed’ (Lk 1:45): Mary has anticipated, in the mystery of the Incarnation, the Eucharistic faith of the Church. When, in the Visitation, she carries within her the Word made flesh, she becomes, in a way, a ‘tabernacle’ – the first ‘tabernacle’ in history – where the Son of God, still invisible to the eyes of men, is offered for the adoration by Elizabeth, as ‘radiating’ light through the eyes and the voice of Mary.”

Mary, therefore, is a model of the Covenant, between the Lord and His bride the Church, between God and each man. Model of a Covenant that is company of Love, confident and fruitful abandonment and fullness of hope that irradiates joy. All of these virtues become music in the Magnificat of which John Paul II gives us a beautiful Eucharistic vision:

“In the Magnificat, after all, is present the eschatological tension of the Eucharist. Each time the Son of God is presented under the ‘poverty’ of the sacramental species, bread and wine, the world has within it the germ of the new history, in which ‘He hath put down the mighty from their seat’ and ‘hath exalted the humble.’ (cf. Lk 1:52). Mary sings of the ‘new heaven’ and the ‘new earth’ that are anticipated in the Eucharist and, in a certain sense, allows a glimpse into its programmed ‘design.’ Given that the Magnificat expresses the spirituality of Mary, nothing helps us live better the Eucharistic Mystery than this spirituality. The Eucharist has been given to us for our life, as that of Mary’s, all one Magnificat!”

John Paul invited us to enter In “the school of Mary, Eucharistic woman.” Now we are shown how within the Magnificat is active and present the “end” or program of this school. End that anticipates – esta is the joyful Good News – the Eucharist, lived as a song of glorification and thankfulness. Thus Mary “anticipates” the “program of God” for history, His plan of salvation, and lives it as a prophetic present. In the joy that inundates her vision of faith; this way also the Eucharist anticipates “in its poverty,” according to John Paul, the creation of the new history.

This very thought has been expressed profoundly by Benedict XVI in his Encyclical on hope, when highlights that Christian hope “gives” something of substance in our present, anticipating the salvation not only proving information about the future but also “performing” our present life:

“Only when the future is certain as a positive reality, does it also carry the present. In this same way, we can now say: Cristianity is not solely some “good news,” a communication of contents unknown until that time. In our language we might say: the Christian message is not only “informative,” but also “performative.” This means the Gospels are not solely a communication of things that se can be known, but also a communication that shapes events and changes one’s life. The obscure doorway of time, of the future, has been opened wide. He who has hope lives in a different manner; he has been given a new life.”

What the Eucharist accomplishes – in its sacramental poverty – Mary sings in the Magnificat and as she sings it, the Church – and each one of us in it – we are made “contemporaneous” with our Lady and we live of her spirituality, that is life in the Spirit:

The Eucharist, as source and summit of the life and the mission of the Church, must be translated in spiritual terms, in life ‘according the Spirit’ (cf. Rm 8:4 s.; Ga 5:16, 5:25).”

I conclude [this section] with a quote from the homily of John Paul II on the occasion of the 150 years of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate, in which Mary is qualified as an “Eschatological icon of the Church,” as the one who pronounces the first “yes” of the Covenant between God and humanity and precedes the people of God in the path to Heaven, and the Church sees in her its salvation “anticipated”:

“She, the first one redeemed by her Son, fully participates in His sanctity, already becoming what the whole Church wishes and hopes to be. She is the Eschatological icon of the Church. For this the Immaculate, is “the source and image of the Church, the bride of Christ, filled with youth and of limpid beauty” (Preface), precedes always the people of God in the pilgrimage of the faith towards the kingdom of Heaven. In the immaculate conception of Mary the Church sees itself projected, anticipated in its most noble member, the salvific grace of Easter. In the event of the Incarnation we find, indissolubly united the Son and Mother: ‘He that is its Lord and its head and she who, pronouncing the first yes of the new Covenant, prefigures its condition of bride and Mother’.”

3. Concrete pastoral consequences

Personal consequences

Throughout this catechesis, as we contemplate in Mary the mystery of the Covenant, it has been gradually revealed to us the riches of the Eucharist and of the Church. In our Mother all becomes concrete and “possible.” In her school the ineffable mysteries of God are given a maternal face and tone and they become comprehensible to the faith filled with Love which, as God’s faithful people, we profess to Mary. The conclusions to be drawn for the personal spiritual life, I believe, each of us must select from among those in which one finds the greatest joy, as Saint Ignatius asserted in the Spiritual Exercises. Uniting the Eucharist and the sacramental communion with Mary is something that we do intuitively, and deepening our understanding of this is something which does us all good.

For this we might ask the Grace of receiving Communion as Mary received the Word and allow it to take on flesh anew in me; the grace to receive the Eucharist from the hands of the Church using ours as a paten (meaning “manger”), aware it is our Lady who places it there and entrusts us with same; the grace of singing with Mary the Magnificat in that moment of silence that follows Communion; the grace of anticipating in the Eucharist all that will be our day or week, with all the good and positive offered jointly with the bread, and all that suffering and passion offered jointly with the wine; the grace of believing and placing with Love all our hope in that premise and token of salvation we already have in each Eucharist, to later conform our life in the image of that which we receive. Thus, each of may derive benefit from that upon which we have meditated.

Ecclesial Consequences

Notwithstanding, it might do us good to draw several conclusions, in light of the riches we have seen, that these may be helpful in our ecclesial life. The affection and veneration we all feel, almost “spontaneously,” for the Virgin and before the Eucharist we must cultivate for the Church. These must be the same, given that as we have seen, Mary and Church are “vessels” transformed at the core for He who desired to “dwell” in them. The effect of of such an incarnation comes from the fact that these “wineskins” are transformed fully in the highest reality that includes them. Just as the Word in taking flesh from Mary sanctifies her totally (including prior to the Eucharist, in the Immaculate Conception), so is the Church holy and sanctifying due to the Covenant the Lord desired to make with her.

Therefore the Christian, when looking at the Church, sees her as holy, spotless and without blemish, as [he would] Mary, bride and Mother. The Christian sees the Church as the Body of Christ, as the vessel that guards with absolute integrity the deposit of faith, as the faithful Spouse who communicates without addition or subtraction all that Christ entrusted. In the Sacraments the Church communicates to us the fullness of life the Lord came to bring us. Although as sons we sometimes/often break our Covenant with the Lord at an individual level, the Church is the place where that Covenant – which we are given for ever in Baptism – remains intact and we might recover it with the [Sacrament of] Reconciliation.

From this holistic view – catholic in the fullest sense (“concretely universal”) – that considers the Church as a vessel whose quality and magnitude are measured from Him who inhabits and maintains forever His Covenant with her, surge other aspects, that might attempt to better or to correct or to express more explicitly aspects (be these partial, tangential, historical and/or cultural) of the Church. But always with this Spirit of Covenant that cannot be broken, as in a good matrimony in which all can be discussed and improved so long as it moves in the direction of the vital Love that mantains the Covenant.

Confessing that Christ has come in the flesh is confessing that all human reality has been “saved” and sanctified in Christ. For this the Lord even wished to remain dead three days and, beyond that, descend to Hell, the place furthest from God that human existence can achieve. The Church as a fully “sanctified” reality and capable of receiving and of comunicating – without error or defect, from its own poverty and even with its own sins –the full sanctity of God, is not a “complement” or an “institutional addition” to Jesus Christ, but a full participation of his Incarnation, of His Life, of His Passion, death and Resurrection. Without these are the “new wineskins” that are the Church and Mary – a concrete universality sin parallel, whose relation is paradigmatic of all else – the coming of the eternal Word into the world and assuming flesh, the Word in our ears and His life in our history, could not be received adequately.

To contemplate the mystery of the Covenant between God and humanity – Covenant that comes from the Old Testament and that is to be extended to all men of good will – the first thing is to situate the Church in the midst of this mystery as the “vessel fully sanctified and santifying,” just like Mary, from where springs the gift of God for the life of the world. As the Pope said, citing Vatican II.

Let us consider, then, the Church-Mary that have their center in the Eucharist: the Church-Mary that lives of the Eucharist and we makes us live thans to the Eucharist. Let us consider the Church-Mary that receive from their spouse the totality of the gift of the Bread of life along with the mission of distribuiting it to all, for the life of the world.

In them the Covenant of God with the humanity is give and is received and comunicated without fissures or defect. The selfgiving to the end, by the bridegroom makes the bride –Mary/Church – all holy, purifies and always creates anew in faith and in charity and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her.

I finish by saying that this reassurance of the sanctity of the Church, is not a question of personal or social privilege, but rather that the Church is ordained to service. Let me explain. As the Church always defends its integrity – as always there have been and are those who take evil advantage of the strength of an institution (which is pathetic for how reductive it is to use something so beneficent as eternal life for the pleasures of transitory life), world has the impression the Church always defends its power and it is not so. In defending its purity, its indefectibility, its sanctity as the bride, the Church is defending the “place” through which the gift of the life of God passes on to the world and the gift of the life of the world to God. This gift – the fullest expression of which is the Eucharist –is not another gift among ourselves but the supreme gift of the most intimate life of the Trinity that poured forth for the life of the world and the life of the world assumed by the Son that is offered to the Father.

As Balthasar stated:

“The act of giving, by which the Father pours out the Son through all space and time of creation, is the definitive aperture of the Trinitarian act in that the “Persons” are “relationships” of God, forms, we might say, of giving and absolute self-giving and of Loving fluidity.”

It is the incommensurable, unreturnable nature of the gift that has been transmitted to us which compels the Lord to sanctify the Church in an indefectible manner, as He did with His Mother, in such a way that it is assured this gift can be both received and transmitted “for the life of the world.” the mystery of the Covenant that makes the Church all-holy is a mystery of [both] service and of Life.
It should never cease to amaze us this definite aperture to the Trinitarian life itself is given and is poured forth not just for some but for the life of the world. This is the case even if not all know it or take advantage of the fruit of the incomprehensible Liberty of the Uno and Triune God whose self-giving is total and for all.

“In uniting to Christ, instead of sealing itself off, the People of the new Covenant are converted into a “sacrament” for all humanity, sign and instrument of salvation, in a work of Christ, into a light of the world and salt of the earth (cf. Mt 5:13-16), for the redemption of all. The mission of the Church continues that of Christ: “As the Father hath sent me, I also send you.” (Jn 20:21). Therefore, the Church receives the spiritual strength necessary to accomplish its mission of perpetuating in the Eucharist the sacrifice of the Cross and being in communion with the body and the blood of Christ. So, the Eucharist is the source and, at the same time, the summit of all evangelization, given that its objective is the communion of men with Christ and, in Him, with the Father and with the Holy Spirit.”