matching tracksuits

To hear Catholic Mass in one’s own language was, for centuries, impossible for the majority of Catholics. Vatican II changed all that, allowing Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular. As a result, Catholics worldwide hear the same Mass yet different sounds.

Poles in America experience a certain foreigners in the English Mass, regardless of the individuals’ fluency. This goes a long way in explaining the significance of the Polish Mass celebrated in Greenville today. A Polish priest, on loan from Polska, is stationed in Columbia, a mere hour-and-a-half from Greenville. After much persuasion, he came to a little church outside Greenville proper, and probably almost every Pole in a thirty-mile radius was there. The kids stood and knelt at the all the proper times, but being raised in the States, they didn’t know the hymns or the responses/prayers. They seemed lost. I would imagine that’s what they’re like visiting Poland as well: strangers in a land that sounds strangely familiar.

For me, it brought a smile. The first time I ever attended a Catholic Mass was in Poland, and Polish is, for me, the language of liturgy. From hearing alone, I know the prayers and formulations in Polish better than English.

Aside from the language, there are subtle and not-so-subtle differences. Poles still do the mea culpa in the Confiteor. “Moja moja, wina, moja wina, moja bardzo wielka wina,” all chant in the church, jabbing their thumb into their chest with each “moja wina.”

At the end of the Mass, he asked for a show of hands for a commitment to a monthly Polish Mass. Every hand in the church went up, including mine (after some prodding from K — I was simply absent-mindedly daydreaming about the oddity of hearing a Polish Mass after so many years).  Critical mass achieved, the priest then announced that there would, henceforth, be a monthly Polish Mass. Applause broke out, and it was then that the significance of the moment was clear. A bit of their heritage, their youth in Poland, their past given place right here in Greenville, home of Bob Jones University, one of the most virulently anti-Catholic institutions in America.

While I was living in Poland, the closest I ever got to getting a taste of my own culture was to drop into McDonald’s or watch the latest American blockbuster.

On Holy Saturday (called “Great [as in, big, important] Saturday”), Poles (and others in Eastern Europe) head to the village or neighborhood church to have baskets filled with food blessed.

Usually, the contents are some of the main ingredients of the Easter morning breakfast: eggs, sausage, etc.

In the States, we’ve always sought out churches that have this tradition. And it’s almost exclusively Poles who attend.

Today was no different. We were different, though: K and L both put on their finest Polish Highlander outfits for the service.

We had a brief photo session before the blessing. The shots with K were easy enough, but it was tough to get the Girl to sit for a moment for an individual picture.

She kept wanting to go dance on the manhole cover.

Before long, our friends had arrived, which meant the Girl’s friends had arrived: everyone was thrilled.

A group picture followed, with everyone seeming to forget that we were using digital cameras: “Here, take one with mine!” “Get one with mine next!”

Before leaving, one of L’s friends had some words of wisdom to share. We’re not quite sure what he said, but it must not have been pleasant: the Girl was fussy and whiny for much of the afternoon.

She wasn’t the only one getting advice.

On returning home, K took the basket out for some pictures,

and I, with a cigar, Guinness, and Drive By Truckers in my ears while smoking meat in our barrel/smoker, felt positively conflicted.

Ever since I first attended a Catholic mass in person, I’ve been fascinated by the Eucharist and the accompanying theology of transubstantiation: the idea that the host is outwardly bread, but inwardly — substantially — Jesus’ body.

I was once in a basilica when a Eucharist minister tripped and spilled the remaining consecrated hosts on the floor. However, I’d never seen it intentionally desecrated, until now.

A YouTube user, fsmdude, has put up a series of videos in which he desecrates consecrated Eucharist wafers. In one video, he shows how he gets them: he holds them in his mouth until he’s outside the church, then he takes out the host and pockets it.

I must admit: he has some fairly original ways to desecrate the host. He feeds one to a duck, another to Venus Fly Trap, and a third to a groundhog. He grinds one up and burns another with a magnifying glass. Some methods, though, are predictable, like flushing a host down a toilet.

The reaction is what one might guess. A few samples of text comments left on his videos include:

• Satan will do worse to you. Fag.
• Believe me, this toilet was far cleaner than the putrid heart of the Judas who did this.
• i’ll pray for you.

There are also video responses. One video response, from p3martab, was, “This is probably the worst thing you could do to mankind, in terms of its relationship to God.” Yet he continues, “All I’m asking you to do is please stop this.” Another user has initiated a flagging Campaign.

I learned about all of this from Blogging Religiously:

I got an email yesterday from a Catholic group praising YouTube for removing a series of videos showing the desecration of the Holy Eucharist.

But today the group—America Needs Fatima—is reporting the videos are back up on YouTube.

America Needs Fatima has initiated a petition:

It seems you removed a video showing the desecration of a Holocaust memorial and a trailer to a Dutch documentary that claims Islam inspires murder and terror.

But Catholic bashing seems to be acceptable.

I therefore vehemently protest your decision to give a platform for anti-Catholic bigotry. I will urge my friends and family to protest YouTube for as long as it takes, until you change this decision, and no longer facilitate blasphemous postings.

A fairly good point, I think.

However, I want to concentrate on something I haven’t seen: death threats. Some of course are saying, “You’ll burn in hell for this,” but I don’t know of anyone adding, “And I’ll send you there myself!” We don’t see massive protests with people holding sights saying, “Decapitate those who desecrate the Holy Eucharist!”

Instead, we hear someone asking politely, “Please don’t do that.” And as such, I’m more likely to be sympathetic.

I think, though, banning the videos would be the wrong move. User p3martab has the right idea: find out where fsmdude is going to mass and deny him access to the Eucharist.

Simple solution that protects free speech.

There’s a revival of the practice of exorcism in Poland.

One of the recruits is the Rev. Wieslaw Jankowski, a priest with the Institute for Studies on the Family, a counseling center outside Warsaw. He said priests at the institute realized they needed an exorcist on staff after encountering an increase in people plagued by evil.

Typical cases, he said, include people who turn away from the church and embrace New Age therapies, alternative religions or the occult. Internet addicts and yoga devotees are also at risk, he said.

“This is a service which is sorely needed,” said Jankowski, who holds a doctorate in spiritual theology. “The number of people who need help is intensifying right now.”

Jankowski cited the case of a woman who asked for a divorce days after renewing her wedding vows as part of a marriage counseling program. What was suspicious, he said, was how the wife suddenly developed a passionate hatred for her husband.

“According to what I could perceive, the devil was present and acting in an obvious way,” he said. “How else can you explain how a wife, in the space of a couple of weeks, could come to hate her own husband, a man who is a good person?”

I guess gone are the days, by and large, of attributing demon possession only to cases of people with spinning heads who spew pea soup, or at the very least, speak in tongues unknown to the victim new a husky, gravely voice. But there are still cases of Regan-esque possession:

Exorcists said the people they help can be in the grip of evil to varying degrees. Only a small fraction, they said, are completely possessed by demons — which can cause them to display inhuman strength, speak in exotic tongues, recoil in the presence of sacred objects or overpower others with a stench.

In those cases, the exorcists must confront the devil directly, using the power of the church to order it to abandon its host. More often, however, priests perform what some of them refer to as “soft exorcisms,” using prayer to rid people of evil influences that control their lives. (Washington Post)

Prayer is so much less dramatic than burning holy water, though.

What’s troubling about the article is that there is no representation of the opposing viewpoint. Not all Catholics believe that internet addiction can be cured with holy water and prayer. Not all Catholics attribute mental illness to Satan. Not all Poles think that Yoga leads to possession.

Last week, Pope Benedict has authorized increased use of the traditional Tridentine Mass (i.e., Mass in Latin). There are some concerns because the traditional Latin liturgy has a prayer for all Jews to be converted.

Still others talk about “turning back the Catholic clock,” fearing that Benedict is on a mission to turn back the now-forty-year-old reforms of the Vatican II conferance.

And still others talk about the silliness of using an ancient, dead language for Mass, a language that most parishioners and probably all visitors will find unintelligible.

What to make of all this?

For all the disadvantages of using Latin, a sense of mystery is a definite advantage. Catholic theology is filled with mysteries

• the Rosary includes meditation on “Mysteries” (their term, not mine);
• at the end of the consecration of the host, the priest and parishioners into “the Mystery of faith.”

The candles, the architecture, the liturgical music — it’s all there to invoke a sense of the mysterium tremendum. The Latin — if parishioners understand what they’re saying — can only heighten that sense.
I have limited experience with Catholic Mass, but since K is Catholic, I do have more experience than I did ten years ago. Most of my Mass-going experience was in Poland, and when I came to the States, I found it odd to hear the liturgy in English. Odd, and demystifying.

K and J went to pre-Easter confession last week. As with every single thing when you have an infant, it was well planned well in advance.

“Yet J doesn’t speak English,”� I reminded K earlier in the week, when she told me about the plan. “How exactly is this going to work?”�

“Well, I’m going to translate.”�

Some, when reading “This is supposed to between the priest and the individual”�, might have injected, “Um, no � it’s between the individual and God.”� More information about the Catholic view of forgiveness can be found here.

“Do you think the priest will let you? After all, this is supposed to between the priest and the individual, and anonymous at that. That’s why there’s all the elaborate screens and confessional booths and such.”� (I’ve never confessed � my imagery of it is pretty much straight out of movies, and watching from a distance.)

“We’ll see.”�

What actually transpired was a somewhat amusing solution to the problem. The priest instructed K, “Tell your mother to say what she needs to say in Polish, then give me a sign that she’s finished.”�

J found it both amusing and touching.

I sometimes go to mass with Kinga for companionship, and today, I was certainly glad I did. Before I get into the reason why, some theology.

Catholics of course believe in something they call the “Real Presence,” which is the belief that the bread and wine are the actual body and blood of Jesus. It’s based on an Aristotelian concept of accident and essence — what a thing looks like and what it really is. So the Catholic explanation of why it still looks suspiciously like bread and wine is that the outward appearance has remained, but the essential reality has changed.

This is why there’s all the genuflection in churches and especially before monstrances, because if that really _is_ God in the -flesh- flour, then it only makes sense to bow.

This also goes a long way in explaining the controversy about how a parishioner can take the host: standing, kneeling, on the tongue, on the palm of the hand. I think the variety is strictly American. In Poland, the issue is vastly simplified: stand or kneel. There’s no way a priest will give it to your hand in Poland. (Kinga’s highly religious aunt is completely shocked and offended that anyone could _think_ of taking the host standing…)

“Real Presence” also explains why some might be a little uneasy with the idea of anyone other than a priest handing out the host. In the States, members of the congregation hand out the blood and wine (though the priest has consecrated it and all that). Again, this is probably a completely American thing.

All this is to explain the significance of why I’ve always wondered what would happen if someone tripped and — whoosh — there’s God, all over the floor.

At this morning’s mass, my question was answered.

An elderly woman, serving as Eucharistic minister, was heading back up to the altar (and so her chalices were probably almost empty) when suddenly there was a stumble, shuffle, and _crash_. I saw the whole thing out of the corner of my eye, and I immediately directed all my attention there — as did everyone else in the basilica.

The priest kept right on going, but not many people were giving him their undivided attention. Everyone was looking at the aisle, watching the lady pick up the hosts as another Eucharistic minister helped her. Then a deacon came with a cloth that had been dampened, I’m assuming with holy water, and wiped the spot.

The woman was obviously quite shaken. She said some words to the priest, and he sympathetically comforted her. Returning to her seat, she muttered something to her husband, and that was that.

It highlights how atypical Catholicism is in modern culture, where all sense of the scared has disappeared. “And so much the better” many of us would add, but sacredness fosters a certain respect that I’m not sure you can get any other way. It’s simplistic to explain it, “Well of course it’s respect — born out of fear, a terror that some deity will toast you.” There’s certainly an element of truth in that.

Communism tried to foster some sense of the sacred — the working masses were the vessels for salvation. The working man is the communist messiah. Marches, songs, flag waving, speeches — all these things to foster a sense of the sacred in the people. Yet it didn’t work. My wife grew up in that culture, and it was all a joke for everyone. Why?

It lacked mystery.

Without mystery, without an element of the unknown and inexplicable, nothing can be sacred. Indeed, sacredness could be defined as a sense of mystery about something thought to be of divine origin. If you see the little old man putting together the wizard show, hanging the curtains, preparing the control panel, it is only through an act of supreme wishful thinking that you can put your faith in the Wizard.

From my journal ten years ago today — my first experience with Corpus Christi, though I had no idea what it was.

I am waiting for the bus, sitting in front of a church. I went in for a moment, but decided I should probably leave — I didn’t cross myself with holy water (It appears to be stagnant water with a greasy film.) and I was getting a few looks (though there were several others who did not cross themselves either).

Suddenly the bells began ringing and eventually I caught sight of a procession coming around from behind the church. Choir boys were dinging small bells and behind them was a procession of relics. A little behind that was the priest, walking under a canopy supported by six men, preceded by a young priest waving an incense burner. The head priest was holding a staff with a gold sun in front of his face — he was led by the arms, for he certainly couldn’t see where he was going. Behind the priest was a group of loosely organized lay-persons, singing a capella. The woman beside me knelt as the group went by. A strange thing, this Christianity.

Ten years ago. Ten years. Ten years…

Just when you think the Catholic Church is bad, along comes someone who proves that it really could be worse.

According to Earl Pulvermacher, John Paul II is an Anti-Pope, which I suppose is almost as bad as being an anti-Christ. He in fact is the true pope.

After 40 years of the Holy See being vacant, the Catholic Church has, on October 24, 1998 elected Pope Pius XIII as the Vicar of Christ on Earth. The details of his election and papacy can be found on the Papal Homepage.

JPII is a heretic. Among JPII’s alleged heresies (our hero lists 101 of them — perhaps he was watching a Disney film as he typed them up?) are all the pronouncements that put a human, tolerant face on the Catholic faith.

There are two columns in list: JP2’s alleged heresies, and “Truth of Divine and Catholic Faith.” Under the latter heading of we find:

• Only Catholics have the right to religious liberty.
• Equal rights for all men is senseless.
• The State must forbid non-Catholic religions.
• False religions worship the Devil.
• Apostate Jews do not worship the One True God.
• No one can be saved who is not in the Church.
• John Paul II worshiped the Devil.
• Buddhism is a religion of damnation

When I look at the list and think of the possibilities, I am all the more thankful that Karol Wojtyla was elected pope and not some more “traditional” Catholic.