Thursday, July 24, 2014

Let's Visit Mănăstirea Plumbuita - the "Lead-Sealed Monastery" in Bucharest

Our Wedding at Plumbuita

Mănăstirea Plumbuita means "The Lead-Sealed Monastery." It's a place near and dear to my heart, because it's where my wife and I were married back in 2005. And, in my mind, it was the setting of key scenes of my novel A Place of Brightness.

Mănăstirea Plumbuita is situated in the north-east quarter of Bucharest, Romania, on a peninsula within Lacul Plumbuita (Plumbuita Lake). It's
Aerial view of the monastery
a monastery that has been in continuous operation since the year 1560. It's called "Lead-sealed" (Plumbuita) because in the very early days, the church on the site was roofed with lead tiles (since then demolished and rebuilt). No current building on the premises has lead tiles. But the name stuck. For over 400 years. 

http://www.linguasacrapublishing.com/masseyexcerptbrightness.html


In my novel, several key episodes take place at a monastery called Mănăstirea
Sfânta Treime. This means "Holy Trinity Monastery." But Mănăstirea Plumbuita was the place these scenes actually happened in my mind's eye. 


 

 
 
To the left you see the current church, built in the 18th century, over the spot of an earlier edifice. Early in my novel, on old monk is described as praying there. 

 

 

The church is a place with dark, hand-painted walls, likely darker from hundreds of years of incense and candle residue. To the right is what the inside looks like. 

In my novel, I describe how the monastery is surrounded by twenty foot brick walls, with massive wooden doors for entrance. To the left is what I was actually describing, the gate below the bell tower of Plumbuita, all of which was built in 1802.

 

 

The monastery operates a free clinic and pharmacy for low-income families. Please visit their main website (it's in Romanian but Google translate will do a good enough job) to learn more and donate to their worthy ministry.


 

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

I curse your name a thousand times...

The absolutely gorgeous Eric Clapton song, "Holy Mother," when sung as a duet with Luciano Pavarotti, states:

"I call your name a thousand times."

But the original studio version of the song, which appeared on Eric Clapton's album August, expresses the lyrics as:

"I curse your name a thousand times."

[Click here to listen to the studio version of the song. The line in question occurs at 2:01]

Presumably, for this duet, a decision was made that the notion of cursing God (Who really is the referent of "Holy Mother") was unacceptable.

I'm a practicing Eastern Orthodox Christian. And I wish the duet had stuck with the original. The original expresses such an honest painful wound. And the notion of cursing God from within the depths of our human pain is not an unforgivable sin.

People sometimes express the sentiment, "I won't believe in a God who would allow thus-and-thus to happen." 

It's as if they are mad at God for not existing!

When bad things happen to good people, grief and anger are natural emotions. And when we are then face to face with the question of why God lets bad things happen to good people, it's not entirely unexpected that we would direct that anger his way.

And that's exactly what happens in this song.

I curse your name a thousand times...

This is followed immediately by:

I felt the anger running through my soul.
All I need is a hand to hold.

This is not a person who doesn't believe in God. This is a person in pain, who, in a moment of human weakness, lashed out at the Ultimate Source of existence.

The hands-down best modern expression of the notion of cursing God, comes from an episode of The West Wing, in which President Bartlet curses God off in Latin after the funeral of his secretary at the National Cathedral. Here you can see the scene, with the Latin translated:




 

 The drama of the Book of Job centers around the challenge from Satan that Job will curse God if he suffers enough. (The Hebrew text euphemizes the word "curse" to "bless.")

After Job has lost everything, his riches, his children, and is a miserable diseased mess, his own wife tells him, "Curse God and die." (ברך אלהים ומת; Job 2:9)

While Job never fails, not everyone has the patience of Job. And not everyone who has ever suffered was thus being tested. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people. And sometimes, good people lost their temper.

Cursing God from a place of deep pain is not Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (whatever that even is). God's abundant mercy freely meets all our sin, even a curse in his face.



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Holy Mother, Hear my Cry...

Ever since a friend here in Romania introduced me to the Eric Clapton/Luciano Pavarotti duet "Holy Mother," I have just been listening to this hauntingly beautiful song in a constant loop.

The first instinct of a Christian of the Catholic or Orthodox tradition is that this is a song addressed to St. Mary, as in Holy Mary, Mother of God.

But even as I was hearing it for the first time, I was hearing things in the lyrics that invalidated my first assumption.

The lyrics include, for instance, poetry of the following sentiment:

"Holy Mother, hear my cry! 
I call your name a thousand times.
I've felt the hunger running through my soul.
All I need is a hand to hold...
You know I would rather be
in your arms tonight."

[The studio version uses the lyrics "I curse your name a thousand times. Click here to read my discussion of this variant form.]

Now, I talk to Mary all the time. But this isn't how we Catholics and Orthodox talk to Mary. This is, however, how we might talk to God, when in despair and needing a hand to hold. So this is a beautiful song addressed to the deity under the metaphor of a Holy Mother, rather than the more common metaphor of the Father.

And there's nothing at all wrong with that.

Jesus taught us to pray, saying, "Our Father..." But in Isaiah 66:13, we also read:

As one whom his mother comforts, I will comfort you.
כאיש אשר אמו תנחמנו כן אנכי אנחםכם

God is beyond the genders of his own created order. To call God "Father" or "Mother" is to use an analogy from within creation to describe an aspect of our relationship with Him/Her.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states (CCC 239):

We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is Father.

As proof that the earliest Christian Church had absolutely no problem with exploring God through a feminine analogy, the Odes of Solomon (a 1st Century AD Syriac hymnal) even describe God the Father as having breasts, in a passage that apparently also manages to hint at the Immaculate Conception (Odes of Solomon 19:2-17):

2) The Son is the cup, and He who was milked is the Father:
3) And the Holy Spirit milked Him: because His breasts were full, and it was necessary for Him that His milk should be sufficiently released;
4) And the Holy Spirit opened His bosom and mingled the milk from the two breasts of the Father; and gave the mixture to the world without their knowing:
5) And they who receive in its fulness are the ones on the right hand.
6) The Spirit opened the womb of the Virgin and she received conception and brought forth; and the Virgin became a Mother with many mercies;
7) And she travailed and brought forth a Son, without incurring pain; 


And so, with Eric Clapton, I sing and smile and say:

When my hands no longer play
My voice is still, I fade away
Holy Mother, there I'll be
Lying in, safe within your arms...

Listen to this beautiful song:






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Regarding Lay Preaching and Canon Law

I stumbled on the news that Bishop Salvatore Matano of Rochester, NY is clamping down on a local tradition in his diocese which esteemed lay preaching. The article states more than once that lay preaching is forbidden by Canon Law, but no where cites, to my annoyance, the canons in question. No matter, a simple Google search found the answers.

In this post I'll parse the pertinent canons and, for what it's worth, offer my opinion and interpretation of the canons in play here.

First of all, in the interest of full disclosure, I am an Orthodox lay person. My pastor routinely each Sunday delegates to me the task of preaching. You can see an example of my style at the right of this post.

The Eastern Orthodox Church follows the canons ratified at each of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, as well as several local councils. As such, there is no formal canon governing preaching, apart from the received tradition that there are sermons, usually given by the priest, as the most theologically educated person.

In this post, when I say "Canon Law" I mean the Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law, promulgated in 1983 and which replaced the first constructed Code, which was issued in 1917.

Does Canon Law forbid lay people from delivering a homily?

Yes, it does. But it also makes provision for lay people to preach in a church.

Regarding Lay Preaching

Can. 766 states: Lay persons can be permitted to preach in a church or oratory, if necessity requires it in certain circumstances or it seems advantageous in particular cases, according to the prescripts of the conference of bishops and without prejudice to can. 767, §1.

In other words, lay persons may preach, as long as this does not violate the exercise of Can. 767, §1.

So what does Can. 767, §1 say? 

Can. 767, §1 defines a homily as something that is reserved to a priest or a deacon (et sacerdoti aut diacono reservatur; ).

Therefore, by definition, a lay person can never deliver a homily at Mass. 

But Canon Law itself admits that homilies are not the only form of preaching. It states that the "among the forms of preaching, the homily is preeminent" (Inter praedicationis formas eminet homilia; Can. 767, §1).

Therefore, there are other forms of preaching besides homilies.  If, by definition, only a priest or deacon can deliver a homily, then a lay person preaching in a church is still preaching, just not delivering a homily.

Now, any reasonable person will admit that there is such a thing as a bad homily. I've given plenty myself, on days when I just wasn't a hundred percent.

In a Catholic context, a thing might be a homily because it was delivered by a priest or a deacon in the context of a Mass. But it could also be a bad homily, because it was either poorly organized, wretchedly delivered, or lacking in any compelling content (or all of the above).

The canons refer to bishops, priests, and deacons as having the "faculty" to preach (Can. 764; facultas). But that is different from having the "power" (potestas) to necessarily do so effectively, because of circumstances arising from his health, native abilities, or work burdens.

So when could or should a lay person preach in lieu of a priest or deacon delivering a homily?

If Can. 767, §1 virtually precludes any scenario in which it is acceptable for a lay person to preach, then there would have been no reason to even include Can. 766. But instead, Can. 766 describes two different circumstances in which lay preaching is permitted:

 1) "If necessity requires it in certain circumstances" (si certis in adiunctis necessitas id requirat)

or

2) "It seems advantageous in particular cases" (in casibus particularibus utilitas id suadeat).

Reading 766 and 767 together, lay preaching under Roman Catholic Canon Law would not seem permissible if there were even two clerics in attendance at the Mass. In such a case, at least one of them should be understood to have the responsibility to have prepared some meaningful homily to deliver after the Gospel. 

Programs wherein lay persons would be delegated to preach merely as way to increase lay involvement would be equally precluded.

But if there are two explicit circumstances in which lay preaching can happen, the most important question is:

Who can authorize a lay person to preach?

Can. 767, §4 states that "It is for the pastor or rector of a church to take care that these prescripts are observed conscientiously."

"These prescripts" refers to the law governing preaching in the parish, lay or clerical. The Latin word translated "conscientiously" is religiose, meaning religiously. In other words, the pastor is expected to observe these canons out of a sense of appropriate religious responsibility.

I would assert that, on a local level, this may not just allow him to delegate preaching to a qualified lay person. It may demand it.

If the priest is burdened with duties such that preparing a meaningful homily is not possible, and he is aware of a qualified and talented lay person who can, in fact, preach with greater effectiveness than himself, delegating preaching would seem to be quite warranted.

Pastors allowing lay preaching should do so on a case-by-case basis, allowing it only if it is a more effective presentation of the Gospel than they could produce. 

But under Roman Catholic Canon Law, the allowing of lay preaching is explicitly something under the authority of the local pastor, not the diocesan bishop.

Interestingly, the Code of Canon Law of the Eastern Catholic Churches explicitly describes the bishop as being in direct supervision of all preaching in his diocese (Can. 609) and further states that only the bishop can authorize a lay person to preach in a church (Can. 610, §4):

In extraordinary circumstances, especially to supply for the scarcity of clerics, the eparchial bishop also may give the mandate to preach even in church to other Christian faithful.

By contrast, the canons of the Latin Church describe bishops, priests, and deacons as having the faculty to preach, but do not reserve the authority to approve lay preaching to the bishop. (763-764). 

While the article I first cited describes Bishop Matano as preparing guidelines to help pastors better understand the law on this matter, lay preaching in the Diocese of Rochester seems to have suddenly been largely cancelled as a result of the bishop's entry into the matter. I think that's a shame, because, while it may be that not all lay preaching was truly defensible under the law, I'll bet a good portion of it was. And, based on what I described above, it doesn't look like it was primarily his job to decide.

As I described above, it is left to the local pastor to apply "these prescripts" religiously. It is certainly the bishop's job to supervise how his priests apply the law, on this and all matters, but that should not mean doing their job for them, and risk disallowing lay preaching which, in that local context, was edifying to the People of God.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Jesus and Mary have appeared in Romania!

I'm sitting in Bucharest, sipping my wine, chatting with my mother-in-law, and, breaking news on TV, right here in Romania, the images of Jesus and Mary have appeared in mineral deposits left by water on the side of a mountain at a place called Cheile Sohodolului.

Here's the image, I'm not going to focus in and highlight it for you because, well, it's obvious to any viewer.
 


Fact is, it has been proven that we humans are hardwired to see and recognize faces. If people flock to this place and feel the presence of God, there's no real harm.

But the world would be transformed and the Gospel magnified if, rather than see Jesus in toast and the side of a mountain, we would more readily see him in the least of his brethren.


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A Jubilee Year in Honor of Pope ... Celestine????

On July 5, 2014, Pope Francis declared a Jubilee Year to honor and celebrate one of his predecessors of the See of Peter, Pope Celestine V.

This man served as Pope only five months in 1294 and then resigned. Canon law always provided for a bishop to resign from his post, and the Bishop of Rome was never an exception. Except it had never happened. And then it didn't happen again until Pope Benedict XVI did so in 2013.

Dante seems to imply that Pope Celestine V went to hell when he wrote:
I saw and recognized the shade of him
Who by his cowardice made the great refusal.

Inferno III, 59–60
The Church proclaimed him a saint, but has also always refused to ever declare someone to be in hell. If Dante really meant to assert Celestine was in hell, I pray for his soul, Dante's not Celestine.

So what is Pope Francis really doing here?

He is doing nothing short of honoring the courageous move of his immediate predecessor, who created a new paradigm for the modern papacy. 

I pray that Pope Francis has many years of healthy and fruitful ministry, ever deepening the unity of the global Church. May he and Patriarch Bartholemew concelebrate the Eucharist at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre following an unexpected healing of the schism.

And may he enjoy many years of a healthy and happy retirement himself, when he passes on the office to the next generation.

Pray for us, Saint Pope Celestine V, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

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