It is the season for Nativity plays.  They come in all shapes and sizes, some of them very slick and professional (some of them even produced by professionals brought in to reduce the chaos).   Others stagger their way to an over-delayed conclusion borne on the wings of prayer and hope, so lengthy that they make my sermons seem like precious jewels of instantaneous wisdom.

Probably the best description of a chaotic Nativity play is in the novel Rubyfruit Jungle, which, however, I cannot recommend to you in its entirety as the language used is not always appropriate to what we would expect in Shirley.   In this disaster-strewn production, one of the shepherds is so overcome by fear on taking to the stage that he wets himself while making his offering, thereby causing the child acting St. Joseph to make the immortal impromptu reply:  “You can’t pee in front of the little Lord Jesus, go back to the hills”.

In recent years, alas, a shadow has passed across the happy-go-lucky world of the Nativity play: some councils have banned parental videos of school productions on the grounds that the results may end up being used for corrupt purposes on the Internet.  And in South Shields one parent recently bit the finger off another during a fight in front of the assembled company before the play began.   “And on earth peace to people of good will”?

Of course one can have a super-professional Nativity play, but somehow it doesn’t seem quite right.  That is more what we would associate with the Passion play, from Oberammergau downwards.   In the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus we are dealing with such mind-boggling matters that we are straining to keep our hold on the story at all.  It is a story that is really beyond our range.  No wonder we tread carefully when we enact it.

But the Nativity play is different.  Chaos and confusion seems to be a built-in part of the story.  ‘Making do’ and ‘muddling through’ are, after all, what the Holy Family had to do.  There was no room for a polished ‘finished product’ in the makeshift accommodation of the manger or the cave.

This is why the story appeals so much to adults, largely irrespective of the fact that it is enacted by children.  It is a symbol of our chaotic adult lives, full of God-given promise, but often blighted by failures, misunderstandings, fruitless expenditure of effort, and grief.

It is only right that Christmas is close to New Year and new resolutions.  As we contemplate the ‘child amid the mess’, so we are reminded of our own God-given lives, so full of outward confusion, yet so rich in God-given worth.  A worth no-one can take away from us.

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Bishop Crispian Hollis

Last Saturday I celebrated a great Mass of Thanksgiving with many of you in the Cathedral. It was thanksgiving for my 75^th birthday and for the 23 years which I have been privileged to spend among you as your Bishop. But, most important of all, it was a Mass of Thanksgiving to God for great graces and blessings that He has poured out on the diocese in recent years.

But, as I said last Saturday, if we have achieved anything during the last 23 years, it has been in no way just my doing. It has been my privilege and blessings to be the shepherd of the flock but what we have achieved has been due to the fact that you have responded to God’s grace to deepen our sense of communion for mission.

We have come a long way during my time as bishop and I have always tried to be faithful to my episcopal motto that we should always act “under the guidance of the Gospel”. I think that has become a motto, or watchword for us all, and we have been abundantly blessed as the gathered disciples of the Lord, proclaiming and living his Gospel to build up  his Kingdom in this part of our land.

In the course of the Mass, many things were said about my ministry that I find difficult to believe. There have lots of mistakes and false starts over the years but you have always been most patient and when necessary, most forgiving. I have tried to do my best and if I have offended or upset anyone during this time, then I ask for forgiveness.

These years have a wonderful time for me and if I needed any evidence of the affection and love in which we hold one another, then the support, love and concern that you have given me over the last few months when I have been ill have been wonderfully sustaining.

In the course of the Mass, a presentation of gifts was made to me and I have to say that I am overwhelmed by your generosity. But what else can I say except a heartfelt and sincere ‘thank you’. You have been so very kind and part of me knows how little I deserve that. But, bless you and thank you. You have been instrumental in giving me the best 23 years of my life.

I wish you every blessing and pray with you now as we await the appointment of a new bishop. If you give him even half as much love as you have given me, he will be very blessed and he will lead the diocese into pastures which are new and rich.

+Crispian

Homily given by Mgr Provost Nicholas France

Pictures

Fr Michael John Mullins

Nov 1913 – May 1915

1886 Born; studied at Ware and Douai; Doctorate in Canon Law
1909 Pope’s Gold Medallist in Canon Law
22 Sep 2910 Ordained
1910-11 Served at St Swithun, Portsmouth
1911-14 Served at St Thomas, Newport
1914-15 Served at St Boniface
1915-1918 Army Chaplain in the trenches of France and Belgium, World War I. Mistakenly reported wounded
27 Sep 1938 Died, remaining an Army Chaplain up until his death and Vicar General to Bishop of the Forces

The decision to reintroduce abstinence from meat on Fridays (from Sep 16) is proving rather controversial.   Some have seen it as an attempt to restore a ‘mark of Catholicism’ (as if other Christians do not abstain – like the Methodists, who gave birth to Kellogg’s cornflakes in the process) or as something which may be a mere token:  giving up meat while enjoying fish.   Others prefer the wide-ranging choice of ways to mark Fridays which have been available in recent years.   Many people do not eat meat by choice.

Be that as it may, I hope that in making their decision our hierarchs were able to read a recent book, “Theology on the Menu:  Meat and the Christian Diet”, which covers the whole history of fasting and abstinence, its rationale and spirituality.

From time immemorial humans have voluntarily abstained from food.   It was a way of reminding oneself that we are not our own source;  God is the giver, and we are dependent on him.   Likewise it was ‘folk wisdom’ that it is good for our health to abstain from some foods at times.   Also Friday, the day of Jesus’ death, was seen as a day not to eat creatures which were killed for food (though that forgets about fish).

Many of the first Christians died as martyrs, and after the persecutions ended their successors wanted to find other ways to show endurance for Christ.   One of these was fasting;  some of the monks in the Egyptian desert had just one meal of pickled vegetables per week.

Gradually a whole structure of fasting and feasting developed, covering the whole Christian year (to say nothing of Ramadan, which we must leave out of the argument). In the West we have largely lost this, though Eastern Orthodoxy retains a complex system of fasts based on meat, fish, eggs, dairy produce, oil and wine.

In the Middle Ages all the people fasted on fast days – did you know that at least in theory Friday was a fish day by law in this country as late as 1856? -  but they also feasted on feast days.   Our “feast days” in the Church are now largely meaningless:  just the Gloria and different readings, with no chance of a banquet.     And sometimes we have the strange situation whereby a fast day (e.g. for CAFOD) falls on a feast day, which to our ancestors would have been very odd.

Maybe instead of become neurotic about the odd sausage eaten in error we should look at this more widely:  saying grace before food, being properly alert to the ethics of food production, and in the case of creatures which die for us to eat, remembering to give thanks for their lives, not always lived in the best conditions ….

Fr David writes:-

No ritual of the Church is ever perfect;  there are always a few loose ends, like life itself, in fact.If you remember the ‘old’, Tridentine, Mass, do you recall that before the Offertory the priest said (in Latin) “The Lord be with you” and “Let us pray” and then didn’t prayer anything, but got on quietly with the Offertory?    This was because in former centuries the “Let us pray” led into the Intercessions, which had dropped out of the Mass entirely (only to be revived by the Second Vatican Council).    The liturgy was left with a little ghostly relic, the “Let us pray” without a prayer!

What we are about to have is a change in translation, but not a change in the Mass itself;  it is important to appreciate that.

But neither the present nor the future translations are  perfect.  That would only be possible in Heaven.    The new and the existing have their admirers and detractors, but in both versions there is the good and not-so-good.

Our present translation dates back to 1974 (not quite the original English version, if you remember the pioneer days, and ironically enough some of those very first phrases are coming back again in the new version) so it has been the real anchor of worship for probably the majority of our people.  It will initially seem strange without it.

The existing translation can be accused of sometimes cutting too many corners and of falling into that famous English heresy of saying that we seek with our own efforts what God gives us through grace.

On the other hand it is very robust, and not at all as hastily thought out as some claim.  It is adapted deliberately to a natural English spoken style.

Our new translation is more expansive, restoring precision in some places where it has been lacking.   On the other hand, the English language does not lend itself very well to the florid conventions of Latin – as you can tell if you have heard an Italian politician making a speech …

At the very least, our present translation deserves to be laid to rest with dignity, as the faithful companion of our spiritual journeys for nearly 40 years.

The Communion Rite ends with the Prayer of Thanksgiving after Communion, and then we come to the Dismissal.   In the Roman Rite this is brief, even abrupt.   There is a temptation to pad it out with extraneous features like numerous notices, etc., but that is not the way of our Rite.  Other Rites prefer to be more expansive, e.g. The solemn celebration is completed in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ; may our prayer be accepted with peace (Mozarabic, Spain).

And so we come to those mysterious words:  Ite, missa est. Literally:  “go, it [feminine] (or ‘she’) is sent”.   What is ‘sent’?   Some say it means:  “the offering is sent (to God)”.   Another interpretation is that missa is a late Latin form of the word ‘missio’ = dismissal. In other words, “go, this is the dismissal”.

If that is so, it is ironical that the word missa has given its name to the whole action while we call the ‘Mass’.    It would certainly sound odd if we said we came to church on Sundays in order to go to ‘the dismissal’.

But maybe that reminds us of something extremely important:  the dismissal at Mass is not just telling us to ‘get out’ but to carry our Christian witness to the world.   That is why the present Pope has added two extra formulas of dismissal:  Go in peace to announce the Gospel of the Lord and Go in peace glorifying the Lord with your lives. The dismissal sums up all that has gone before.

So ite missa est is impossible to translate literally.   In other languages we have:  Go in the peace of Christ (French), the Mass is ended, go in peace (Italian), let us go in peace and may the Lord go with us (Portuguese), and so on.

After the exchange of Peace comes the Breaking of Bread, which is one of the most important actions of the Mass although it may not seem so.

One might ask firstly:  why does the breaking come now, and not at the time of the Consecration at the words “he took bread and gave you thanks, he broke the bread …”?

The reason is that the Mass is a liturgical action based on the Last Supper;  it is not a re-enactment of the Last Supper, a kind of Passion Play.   If it were, we would have to include other elements, such as one of the congregation walking out in representation of Pontius Pilate – which would be interesting …

So it is just after we have demonstrated two great signs of our union (praying the Lord’s Prayer together and sharing the Sign of Peace) that we show that – paradoxically – this union of ours depends upon a division:  the ‘breaking’ of Christ in his self-offering for us.

The text which accompanies this breaking is the “Lamb of God”.   “Lamb of God” is a title used by John the Baptist in St. John’s Gospel (chapter 1) as he points Christ out to his own followers, and clearly echoes the words of Isaiah 53 which we read on Good Friday:  “Harshly dealt with, he bore it humbly … like a lamb that is led to the slaughter-house”.   The first two petitions in the “Lamb of God” end “have mercy on us”, for it is we who have caused Christ to be broken.   The third and last ends “grant us peace”, thus bringing us back to the theme of union with which we had begun.

With the best will in the world, it is difficult, except in Masses for only a few people, to make the Breaking of Bread the great visual symbol which it should be.   For the most part, the Bread already consists of prepared units: hosts.   Some churches have attempted to use one loaf, and break it into many pieces, but this presents great practical difficulties in terms of time and the multiplicity of crumbs.   So it seems doomed to remain something of a ‘token gesture’.

The priest then takes the broken Bread and the chalice and shows them to the people.

It is at this point that an important translation change is taking place.

At present the priest says:  This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world;  happy are those who are called to his supper.

Adhering more closely to the Latin text, he will in future say:  Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world;  blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.

“Blessed” is an improvement on “happy”, as with the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.   Blessedness and happiness are not the same thing, and blessedness has a depth which happiness does not.   “The supper of the Lamb”  also indicates more clearly that this is a quotation, from Apocalypse 19: 9:  Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.

The people’s response will also change, to:  Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed. This closely follows the Latin text.

What is happening here and what is this about “roof”?   The Mass text is echoing the words of Matthew 8:8 and Luke 7:6.   This is the story of the pagan centurion who wants a cure for his paralysed servant.   He realises that as a Jew Jesus cannot enter his house without being defiled.   As a soldier, he is used to giving and taking orders, so he asks Jesus to effect this cure ‘at long range’ – as he has faith that Jesus can so do.

Clearly the context has altered for the liturgy of the Mass, though we are still talking about Jesus being effectively present.  “Roof” does not mean “roof of the mouth”.  It is referring to “house” and “house” is referring to us.

Our present translation perhaps senses that there might be confusion at this point, and so prefers to ‘give the gist’:  I am not worthy to receive you.

It might be added that various other translations tackle this issue differently, e.g.

I am not worthy to receive you [French]

I am not worthy for you to enter my house [Spanish, Portuguese]

I am not worthy to share at your table [Italian]

I am not worthy that you should come under my roof [German].

Even the Polish translation, normally very close to the Latin, gives I am not worthy that you should come to me.

And so, possibly mystified by “rooves” (or “roofs”), we receive Communion, preferably reverencing it with a slight bow before we do so.

Plenty of room this week to cover the ground  (and no changes in the people’s parts except of course for “And also with you” becoming, again, And with your spirit at the Sign of Peace).

The first thing we may notice is that immediately after the Eucharistic Prayer we begin what is called the “Communion Rite” even though receiving Holy Communion is still some little way off.   Why?

Because although our receiving Holy Communion is very important, it is not the only sign of our “Communion”.   We pray together our common prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, and we offer each other our common peace, the Lord’s Peace.   These are all parts of one Rite, one ritual.

The Lord’s Prayer comes in the Mass where it does because the Lord is now here.  With the conclusion of the Eucharistic Prayer, he is present, on the altar, under the forms of bread and wine.

[One may say at this juncture that there is a difference of understanding between East and West about “when” Christ becomes present during the Eucharistic Prayer.  In the East, the priest calls down the Holy Spirit on the bread and wine after the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, and the Eastern Church will only say that when the Prayer concludes, Christ is emphatically present.   They are no more specific than that.

In our Western understanding, the priest calls down the Holy Spirit on the bread and wine before the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, and so Christ becomes present in each.   That is why the priest genuflects twice, after praying over the bread and the wine.    Nevertheless, it is at the end of the prayer that the priest holds up high the host and the chalice, offering them as Christ’s own sacrifice to God the Father, to which the people assent with the “Great Amen”.

We are also used to the priest raising the host and the chalice after their respective consecrations, but this is, if we may call it so, a lesser action, a devotional showing of the species to the people.   Priests are particularly told not to confuse these ‘elevations’ with the great offering at the end of the prayer.   In the days before frequent Communion, much was made of this ‘showing’, which really came to replace the receiving of Holy Communion in the case of most people.   The older among you may remember that when in large churches several Masses were being celebrated simultaneously at side altars, people would actually scuttle about from one altar to another, trying to ‘catch’ as many elevations as possible.   Hardly what Jesus intended ...]

In the Gospel accounts of the giving of the Lord’s Prayer, there follows a little commentary in the form of an elaboration on the theme of forgiveness.

In the Mass, picking up from the idea of “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” the theme slides, as it were, towards peace and freedom from anxiety.  This begins with the prayer “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil” to which the response is the “Little Doxology” – for the Kingdom, the power and the glory are yours - which some Christians are used to saying as an integral part of the Lord’s Prayer, as it does appear as such in at least some versions of the Biblical text.

Thus we move logically towards the Peace.   Christ told the disciples at the Last Supper that his peace was not one which the world gives;  it is of a different order.   In particular, it offers freedom from anxiety.   Anxiety is a disease which crucifies the modern world.   I have lost count of the number of times I have told people that at the Sign of Peace we are not just saying ‘hello’ and being “matey” but we are wishing our neighbour freedom from deep anxiety.

It is a slight pity that the new translation changes the priest’s words from “anxiety” to “distress”, which does not seem to be the same thing at all.   Many people are consumed with anxiety who do not obviously seem to be in distress.

Some other Mass translations have “trials” [French], “dangers” [Portuguese], “bewilderment” [German]. Italian comes closest with “turbamento” = agitation.    I think “anxiety” hits the nail on the head.   It’s what causes psychiatrists to rake in great bucketloads of cash.   It’s what we need, in common, to ask Jesus to protect us from.

We offer the peace to our neighbour, without discrimination.    The priest at the altar does the same, to the server or concelebrant.   In the old days, the Peace, if it hadn’t ceased altogether at least as far as the laity were concerned, flowed down from the priest to the people as though it depended on him.   There was even the use of the so called “Peace Board” [Pax Brede], a wooden tablet inscribed with an image of the Crucifixion, which was passed down for people to kiss.

The priest is particularly asked NOT to leave the altar and start giving the Peace to all and sundry.   It may seem democratic and ‘nice’, but it detracts from the force of the people offering it to each other.  It can suggest it is sent ‘downwards’ from the priest.

And that is wrong.

Having got that off my chest, we proceed next week to the Breaking of Bread as the Communion Rite

“…  Which will be shed for you and for all” or “… Which will be shed for you and for many”.   Which?

The Latin of the Mass has “many”, following the Greek of the Gospels.

There are three points here:  (1) “It is to be a translation, so we must translate what is there”  (2) In the Aramaic language spoken by Jesus, “many” means “all”   or (3) “Many” means “many”;  Jesus offers himself for all but not all accept him.

Biblical scholars do not generally think that (3) is what Jesus meant.   I am tempted to say that based on the trend of Mass attendance we should say “which will be shed for you and for few …” but maybe that is too pessimistic.

After the elevation of the chalice, the priest says/sings “Let us proclaim the mystery of faith”.   The Latin is mysterium fidei:  “the mystery of faith”, with no verb.   That is what he will say in future.   That may be mysterious, but more mysterious is this word “mystery”.   It certainly doesn’t mean “search me, I don’t know”.

[The older of you will remember, in passing, that in the ‘old’ Mass these words were actually inserted into the text for consecrating the wine]

“Mystery” is a synonym for “sacrament”, and as some will remember from their Catechism, a sacrament is “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace”.

The three Acclamations after the consecration contain the elements of (a) past, Christ’s death and resurrection (b) his presence with us now and (c) his coming again:  past, present, future.   The Acclamation which sums this up most succinctly is “Christ HAS died, Christ IS risen, Christ WILL come again” – though that is not in the Latin of the Mass at all and so is being dropped, because unlike the others it talks ABOUT Christ rather than TO Christ (now sacramentally present through consecration).   The others are being re-translated so as better to incorporate these elements of past, present and future.

In a nutshell, “the mystery of faith”  means just that: “our faith in a nutshell” – though we can hardly sing that at Mass.   Christ present among us:  yesterday, today and for ever.

Eucharistic Prayers 2, 3 & 4, being modern compositions, lend themselves best to retranslation.   With Prayer 1 things are different:  its language belongs to a distant age and to us may seem very flowery (literally:  “these gifts, these presents, these holy undiminished sacrifices”;  “we beseech you, deign to make this oblation blessed, attributed, ratified, reasonable and acceptable”;  “this admirable chalice”).   This all sounds fine in Latin where it rolls over our heads like a great wave, but in English it may seem quaint.   The present translation made the conscious decision to simplify a lot of this;  the new one restores it.    Which is going to work better?

Latin (and Greek) are languages with complex vocabulary and syntax where sentences can go on for ever.   The beginning of the letter to the Ephesians consists of one sentence of 202 words!   Every modern translation breaks that down into components.

Our present Mass translation does likewise.  The new one does not.  There is a thin line between over-reducing and risking being babyish, and being over-literal and difficult to follow.

Researchers have shown that in the new translation of these Prayers there are 18% more words, 67% fewer sentences and 73% more words per sentence.   And according to generally accepted indices of comprehension, 30% more ‘mental maturity’ is needed to understand the new texts.   This means one of two things:  (1) we have been short-changed in the past, or (2) fewer people will understand in the future.

Time to move on to the Communion Rite …

This is the heart of the ‘mystery’.   The early Church guarded it carefully, for initiates only.   To this day in the Byzantine liturgy the deacon chants:  “The doors!  The doors!” meaning that the doors must be watched to prevent the entry of any unbaptised – not that anyone does.

Properly speaking, the Eucharistic (Thanksgiving) Prayer begins with the dialogue preceding the Preface & Sanctus, but conventionally we speak of it as beginning after the Sanctus (“Holy, holy”).

The Prayer is prayed aloud by the priest on behalf of the people (hence the imminent translation changes do not greatly affect the people at this point) but it is still the prayer of the people to which they give their assent in the final, ‘great’, Amen.

In the early Church this Prayer was probably ‘ad-libbed’, though incorporating the Last Supper words of Jesus.   In time, the Prayers were written down and fixed.   The  Byzantine Church uses three, the Ethiopians so many nobody is quite sure, and our Roman Rite was left with just one – the so-called ‘Roman Canon’ or our present Prayer No. 1.

This ancient prayer is unusual in that it is based on the model of the Church in Alexandria in Egypt, whereas our other prayers follow the model of the Church in Antioch, in Syria (more on this anon).   The Egyptian model has two blocks of intercessions, separated by the consecration, and seems more diffuse and ‘scattered’ as a result.

At the Second Vatican Council (1962-5) there were some who wished to abandon the Roman Canon entirely as no longer meeting modern needs.   It was saved through the intervention of Pope Paul VI.   Some countries had taken this unrest as the cue to start composing their own prayers with chaotic results reminiscent of the early Church -  Holland provided 11 prayers, Indonesia 10, France – allegedly – 100!

Official order was restored when just three other prayers were added (2, 3, 4) and subsequently these have been joined by three prayers for use at children’s Masses, two for reconciliation Masses, one for Masses for the deaf where the prayer is signed, and one, coming from Switzerland (1974), called for “Various Needs and Occasions”, which has four variants – I usually call this Prayer 5, but that is not an official title.

Of the first three new prayers, the short No. 2 – beloved of the ‘quick Mass brigade’ – was based on an ancient liturgy proposed by St. Hippolytus (†235) in Rome.   Nos. 3 and 4 were the work of an Italian Benedictine scholar, Dom Cipriano Vagaggini (†1999), based on ancient models.   No. 4, which is particular expansive, has something in common with the Eastern ‘Liturgy of St. Basil’ which describes at length the work of Christ’s salvation.

One may add in passing that the words of Jesus – deliberately kept the same in all the prayers – do not exactly correspond to any of the four accounts of the Last Supper in the New Testament.    They are a composite formula of the early Church.

All of these prayers, of varying lengths, follow a common pattern.   This pattern we will analyse next week, before proceeding to particular translation points in the new prayers, and the people’s responses in the so-called ‘Eucharistic Acclamations’