Adjust to modern world for pastoral reasons, but aren't there limits to such adjustments? Of course there are. Above all, do not change the message, only make it more effective . . .
Don't reject or play down its heart and soul . . .
Above all, don’t go all therapeutic and bland. Parishes advertise getting to know what it’s like being a Catholic, not what it takes to be one.
Therapy sells. That’s valid, of course. There’s comfort in having solved the universe, which is part and parcel of the Jesus-and-Mary experience.
What’s it all about, Alfie was a song title and first line. People feel that. I remember joining the Jesuits as a way to make certain I would be of doing God’s will, aka putting order into my life.
God would be pointing the way, I figured. Was comfort in that for me at age 18, as it is mutatis mutandis at 93 -- assuming I mind my p’s and q’s religion-wise, life-wise, everything-wise.
Not a sure thing, never is, got to work at it, asking and getting help along the way. With mixed results, one might say, but keep it to yourself if you don't mind.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch of right and wrong, we have gung-ho changers, experimenters, to whom what works is the thing, what makes worship more appealing, let’s call it being pastoral.
A bit of history: 1970 or so, I ran into a TV newscaster of note, a generation older than I, after a guitar mass at Old St. Mary’s in the south Loop, early evening as I recall. Introduced myself (was a newspaper reporter at the time, used to asking), we talked, he was still getting over what he had seen, what had been new to him.
When did this happen? he asked. I filled him in, having covered far more of such innovation at a conference in Milwaukee in September of ‘69, not to mention in my time as a Jesuit prior to May of ‘68. It was the apex of such experimentation, due to continue for the rest of the decade.
I wrote about revamping things Catholic in December of '70, asking priest experts what had happened since the end of Vatican Council II in '65.
Headlined “The ‘two Catholic churches’ — Despite five years of change, a sharp split remains between traditionalists and Vatican II reformists," my Daily News story opened:
“Five years after the sweeping reforms of the Vatican Council II, the Roman Catholic Church finds itself neither where it was nor where it would like to be.”
The "work of reform" was "not completely derailed," Fr. John L. McKenzie, a DePaul U. prof whom I knew from our days in the Jesuits, told me and my readers.
"Things are being done more quietly now. The shock is off. It's no longer a revolution. We're not dancing in the streets now."
The "most outstanding success" had been liturgical change, including permitting Catholics to worship in their own languages, he said. And the guitar mass, he might have added.
McKenzie cited another change, "increased freedom for those who write and talk" — he being a veteran of struggles within the church against censorship, which he called a matter not of legislation but of policy.
"No one is coming down on anyone now," he said, "because it looks bad."
As for this stack’s initially placed issue, liturgy that’s rewarding to the worshiper, during and after mass, consider briefly the matter of providing great thoughts from great places, for instance:
At mass, a weekday homily:
Man got personal, entering dangerous ground to be tread carefully, succeeds. Gets a laugh telling how to receive communion, some elementary stuff, worth repeating, along the way giving a quiet word for, what? gays and their month of June, referring briefly to their feeling left out by the church.
A quiet word, in effect recommending a stay-calm feeling as regards a matter rarely found in homilies. All in all, he quietly heartfelt, which sells — crucial in the world of pastoral reflection.
More from holy writ, Acts 28.1 and following. Luke writing, he and Paul and the hospitable barbarians of “the island called Melita [Malta],” who when a viper landed on Paul’s arm and he brushed it off, surviving without a blink or nod, thought him a god.
A super-hospitable among them, Publius, took took them in, put them up in his big house for three days, in which time Paul healed people right and left. See what I mean when I say Luke is the Grand Reporter of the New Testament? Love that guy.
And to close this off, a Pauline expression to keep in mind, 2nd Corinthians, 9.7:
Every one as he hath determined in his heart, not with sadness, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
Used to be on envelopes for giving to the church, St. Catherine of Siena, Oak Park IL in 1940’s, where I had my first experience of understanding God’s way as the only one and asking for help in trying to live up to that realization.
It’s a winner for pew-sitters of the world. Not easy to live up to. but what you gonna do?
Oh, and make that also cheerful liver while you’re at it. Have faith, or as the song has it, “pandemonium liable to walk upon the scene.”