Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:01 Out West every fall. There's always a big map and the funniest part of it, it's almost always the result of well-meaning people trying to be helpful. What's the problem? It starts with hunters and the hunters heartbreak and obey, say cruel. It's a simple rule. He leaves gates. The way you found him, he just leaving exactly the way you find them. What happens in the hunters might be driving along and see a close gay and typically in our part of the country that's just a piece of Bob water fence. Linda said, pick it up and close it or they'll see an open gate and figured, well, we'll leave it open for the next guy that comes along so he won't have to get out of the pickup and opened the gate anyway. By the time someone finally comes along and fixes everything, it is not unusual to have cattle scattered from here to breakfast.
Speaker 0 00:52 They're all over the country. There's good common sense, cool reasons for leaving gates the way you find them and especially if you don't know why the gates like that, you're the last person they ought to mess with it. It's most likely been left open or closed for darn good reason and you need to respect that and not think you have a better idea. So unless the guy knows for sure that gate was left in the wrong position by someone who had, he's always supposed to leave the gates the way font. Now, my recent trip home got me really thinking about this rule when I walk into a Catholic Church and central Montana was supposed to baptize this little baby and I had a look around. All I could think of was dad gum that why can't they just leave gates the way they find them now?
Speaker 0 01:41 What am I talking about? Where their gates and the church? No, there weren't any gates at all. I said that because the architecture and arrangement of the church, what does that have to do with leaving gates? The way of fun? It has everything to do with that. This principle applies more than yes. Gates in the country. If you don't know why something is like it is, you shouldn't mess with it. It's just common sense. For example, imagine a teenager ignoring this rule with his dad's car. He decides he wants to take a real close look at the engine. He see pops open the hood and she says himself where all these wires and hoses in things I'm ever going to see the answer with all this stuff in a way, so he gets out his priors and goes to work and rips out the wiring harness and all the vacuum lines.
Speaker 0 02:27 He may indeed get a closer look at that engine, but that car isn't going to go very far anymore is it? If you don't know why something is like it is, you shouldn't mess with it. That principle applies to customary or traditional ways of doing things and for exactly the same reasons and pies. That church. See the architecture when I walked in, that church was totally whacked. We look over here. Here's the lunch, Connor with the coffee pots in the kitchen. There's the lunch tables behind the lunch from the corners. That statute of bless his mother and St Joseph Right next to the lunch table is, is it Paul? There's an altar right next to it or some big ugly potted plants hidden by behind the pot plants in a corner. It's a very ugly thing. That's an excuse for Tabernacle and all this. It's filled up with folding chairs all on the same exact level.
Speaker 0 03:22 Absolutely, and completely whack. They totally missed the idea what's wrong there? They have a complete misunderstanding of two basic concepts. What it means to be holy and what it means to be profane. Those concepts need to be expressed in the lay out of a church. First concept, holiness or sanctity. Holiness means the state of purity. It means freedom from sin. It means sanctity. The basic idea is that holiness pertains to things which are set of part four and dedicated to the worship of God. There are holy persons, places, things, and times persons like none. Places like Catholic churches, things by Charleston and time like Sundays and holidays for obligation and their degrees of holiness. Obviously the Tabernacle has a lot higher degree of holiness than the stations of the cross, even though they're both holy and dedicated to God's worship. The degrees of holiness also determine the care and reverence that we have to use when we approach these things, Huh?
Speaker 0 04:38 We have to treat only persons, places, things, and times differently and reverently because in some special way, and they've been given over to God. That's holiness. Second concept, profane profanity, directly contrast with holiness. Profane means not sacred. Comment, not devoted to sacred purposes. Unconsecrated, secular, not here. Worldly or unholy. Someone who profaned things as a man who either buys words, which we call profanities or by adaptions, treats sacred things with the irreverence. He treats the sacred things as if they're ordinary or common. So holiness on the one hand needs to be set aside, consecrate, and devoted to the worship of God who call faintness means to not be sacred, to be not devoted to the worship of God, to not possess any, particularly holding us to be worldly. Now, as every Catholic knows, churches are consecrated by yet that's a lengthy ceremony, takes hours, and it sets that place totally apart for the worship of God.
Speaker 0 05:46 That means a church is some kind of holy place and it's not just an elementary school lunch room, lunch rooms and coffee pots are profane, doesn't mean they're evil, but they're profane. They're not consecrated, they're not set aside from the way she put God. They churned it kind of Catholic church ended up place to sit around and chat and drink. Coffee is a profanity, to put it mildly, but even if that were fixed, the architecture was still profane. We'll just look at one point for the sake of time, although there's plenty in a properly designed Catholic church is I've mentioned to many of you before, whether you're in the eastern rye or in the Latin right, there are three divisions in space. The vast deal out there, the neighbor, y'all are sitting in the sanctuary up here, three divisions of space. They're all Mitzi and that church, the kind of reverence that we Catholics are supposed to have for tradition is rooted in a profound appreciation.
Speaker 0 06:45 Finally for the fourth commandment. It's an attitude that our fathers and faith did things this way and they know more than we do and we realize that they do things in a certain way. It's for a darn good reason, even if we don't know what that reason was. So we leave gates the way we find them. And if every Catholic church traditionally throughout the world and whatever, right you're in has those three divisions as space, there's a pretty good reason for it, even if you don't cotton onto what it might be. So what are the reasons for the three spaces in the church? Well, among other things, the Catholic church symbolizes or symbolically portrays and it's architecture creation. It's reality tipped on its side or tip flat to when God created everything he created heaven, earth and underworld. There's three levels of reality. Heaven, earth and underworld.
Speaker 0 07:33 So the whole church has just been tipped. I'm standing in, what's liturgical heaven. You're on liturgical earth. Liturgical underworld is the vestibule. We know that already. What does that mean for us though? Practically speaking, it means as we draw closer to God by moving from out in the world into the vestibule, our behavior has to start changing. It has to change according to where we're at, and then when we move from, from the vest spill into the Ne, our behavior has to become more reverend. And if we're in the sanctuary, we're still cost to God that we're in a totally different world. These three places have three different degrees of holiness required. You don't need me to tell you that when you're in the vestibule, you don't have to behave the same as in the navy. That's why we take little kids who don't know that yet.
Speaker 0 08:18 Back there, they're making noise. They don't know how to cue. They're carrying on. They don't know how to behave. But out here, that's one type of behavior. And then up here in the sanctuary, what Cayman come up here during ceremonies, we have to have on special clothing and act and special risks, ritualistic ways because we're in the holiest place. And then of course the priest has to have on the most specialized investments, all of which are consecrates specifically for use at the altar and all of which has special prayers that the priest says as he's putting them on. And then the priest has the most specialized and complicated ritualistic of acting. And why is that?
Speaker 0 08:59 Because when a man comes called to the guy, the God who is after the holy, holy, the accountability of that man increases. There's this sort of a balance or attention we have to keep in mind when we approach God. On the one hand, God loves us. Infinite, incredible love. He's numbered every hair on our heads. He wants us to have a close and personal loving relationship with him. That's on the one hand and we don't want to forget that. Cause on the other hand we also have to keep in mind that this God is completely and utterly holy, which means that as we approach him, we have to be evermore careful to watch her behavior and not step over any lines to cross any boundaries. So on one hand he loves US intimately. The other hand, he's infinitely pure and holy. To look at how the man who worked closest to God spend so many years, seven years in my case, going through a series of consecrations being set ever farther apart from the world.
Speaker 0 10:00 They set every part apart from the rest of you, giving up all kinds of natural goods and pursue the holiness and all this is done precisely so that we can work up here safely so we can safely take deer, please to God and bring his message back down you so we can work in the person of Christ and not be a scandal or a stumbling block for all y'all think. What else has caused this means to a priest? On the one hand, he's called to this intimacy with God. It means God has an incredible love for him. The other hand, it means that infractions committed by a priest up on all our judge far, far more seriously than those committed by anyone else anywhere else. Why? Because these sins are committed by an official representative of God and they're committed in the holiest place, the universe, and they're committed right in God's face.
Speaker 0 11:02 That's not any place for goofing around. A priest has important business to 10 to at God and it's dangerous. Everybody knows the same. Familiarity breeds contempt. We priests in our life amongst divine things we have all man have to be especially careful not to treat holy things profane. Lee, just to give you some idea of how serious it is, the rubrics for the Nass bind me under the pain of mortal sin. That means I don't come up with any big ideas. I better just leave gates story. I found him. He may notice that before I go back in the confessional aftermath. I kneel down there for a little while. You know why? Cause there's a little prayer. It's in the mess alerts Austin and my breviary and it's promulgated by a saint pots of 10 it has the condition that if I say this prayer while I'm on my knees, the punishment due to my accidental infractions of the rubrics that are caused by human weakness will be remitted.
Speaker 0 12:02 The punishment due to me from my accidental hit crack. Yes. Unfortunately, even though I practiced for almost a year, dry mouth is when I was at then you can sometimes up to four day Ivan 10 math for coming on two years now and I really try to follow the rubric. Scott mistake, and I'm not proud of it. I haven't had a plow this mass yet. It's hard to do anyway. Please don't. Golly one's called the holiness survey. The Ne and avascular deal are still holy place that have been set apart for the worship of God. So the behavior there has to correspond to the holiness of the place we're in. We can can be just as guilty of profanity there. That's what he reference thoughts, words or deeds are in a catholic church. They're profaning a holy place. And remember, what we do in here determines what goes on out in the world.
Speaker 0 12:55 This is a floodgate for grace. This is where we get everything we need to turn the world around. It flows from the altar. Oh, we take it out of here. So the basic problem with that little coffee house church is it's profanity captured in architecture. Just think about it. After the fall, Adam was driven from the sanctuary of the garden and God station Kevin there with flaming swords to keep him away. When Moses just went up to Mount Sinai, God said, if anyone else approached the sanctuary, it touched the holy mountain. He'd die in the temple in Jerusalem, they were lead by standing there with drawn swords. So if someone tried to wander in the sanctuary, they were supposed to kill them. The holiness of God is so absolute that after the fall of Adam, he couldn't be safely approached. It wasn't just spiritually dangerous to approach God.
Speaker 0 13:52 It was actually physically dangerous. If the high priest survive the day of Atonement, he had a party because if he made a liturgic Clair, his truck debt, that's why when he went in behind the curtain, they had a rope tied on his leg and he had little bells on his Catholics so they could hear cause they couldn't go on either. If the bells quit ringing and they reeled him in because they know he messed up God liens pitches. And that's the same God right there. That's the same God. God never changes. So what happened if he never changed his? What's protecting us now?
Speaker 1 14:29 Okay,
Speaker 0 14:30 he's The only begotten son became a man and he's interceding for us right now and protecting us from the righteous wrath of his father. Let's not forget though that when our Lord became mad and he was physically present 2000 years ago, he hit his bed. He had tucked fake lots things to believe that carpenter nailed on a cross. Was it God the son, the second person, the most blessed it trinity. It took faith and now he's hidden both his divinity and his humanity under the appearances of bread and wine. And it takes pay lots of faith to believe that that post and the tabernacle is a body, but so on the vanity of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But we do believe, and since we believe we have to express this heir belief, you know where the actions we have to express it because there's a rule, either actions for follower beliefs or beliefs.
Speaker 0 15:32 You're going to follow her actions. Don't ever forget that room. It'll keep you out of hell. Either actions follow our beliefs or beliefs, they're gonna turn around and start falling or actions. So don't tell me those people believe that's God. The best thing they can do, the very best they can do for God himself is build a little ugly cavern hackle and him off in the corner behind a potted plant caddy corner at the same level as a bunch of coffee pots and then ignoring to turn that back to them when they're talking about cattle prices and drinking coffee. Do we believe that that's the way we're acting? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Our Lord said, my father's house should be a house of prayer, but you can turn it into a Ghana fees. What would he say? Now my father's house should be a hostile prayer, but you turn it into a coffee shop. The Catholic church is a holy place and everything about it has to speak and teach holiness. It's the house of God and it's the gate of Heaven, the House of God. It's the gate of heaven.
Speaker 0 16:40 Now, a few months have gone by Ted Tell Jack, but the proper rubrics for faithful at high and low mass. Thanks for the prayers. I'm not solid. We'll take a quick look to back on information before we tackle that. For the sake of time, I'll just hit the high points. Starting around World War One, certain members of the liturgical movement concluded that there was an artificial division that it somehow developed over time between the ordained priesthood in the common priesthood of the faithful. This is an idea that flies in the face, the scripture tradition, and it resonates very strongly with the Protestants. Anyway, ideas have consequences and this one is certainly no exception. It's resolved among other things and the notion that everything and every place and everyone is equally holy and that mistake is produced among other things, whack coffee, house architecture for churches. So we've got the whacked idea that everything is equally holy and then in order to see, close to suppose it artificial division between ordained priesthood and the priests or the faithful will lead to smudge the differences and move everyone towards the middle.
Speaker 0 17:48 So to what does that mean? To some degree it means precheck like lady and in the math especially means lady I more like trait. The result has been an upsurge of a weird sort of clericalism as if the only important people in church are, the cleric has Carnell Newman said the church would like mighty foolish without the faithful. We're not the only, we're doing this for you. There's a symmetry here. We're doing it for you. You have the babies, you give natural life and we bring suit in the supernatural FTA. It's a deal. So I mean there's a symmetry here. At any rate. It's just a weird idea that everybody has to act very priest like and crushes. In so many cases, that true pod in devotion in many class Catholics and attempts to replace it with a strange idea that to fully participate at mass means having a ministerial or a quasi ministerial role.
Speaker 0 18:42 Is this something that vulnerable pots 12 warned against? It's also resulted in insistent that everyone has to be reading a muscle. Now, get me right. There's nothing wrong with a missile. It's great to a missile, but there's nothing wrong with being illiterate either in the Catholic church. I never heard that. You had to know how to read to be a good Catholic launched of us. Didn't know how to read when we were little anyway, so there's nothing wrong with them that so, but it's not absolutely essential to be keeping up with what the priest is doing. If you hit a neat place in the missile and it starts moving your spirit and sit there and think about that, that's what you can do. I have a job to do. I can't just stop and start having, you know, private devotions you can. At any rate, there's nothing wrong with the illiterate Catholics.
Speaker 0 19:23 There's nothing wrong with rosaries or prayer books or these other devotions as pies. The 12th also pointed out, so that gives us a little context for discussing rubrics. First off, what are the rubrics or rules that we have to follow? We meaning the priest and the servers up here to render the official word worship to God in a manner that's pleasing to him. It tells me how I'm supposed to place my hands where I'm supposed to be looking with my eyes, the volume of my voice and so forth because the whole mass is a vocal prayer. I have to say everything out loud, but as you've gathered by now, you can't hear everything I say. All that's determined by the rubrics which apply directly to those of us up here. They also apply to cleric sitting in choir, like when the deacons say, hey, here's a clerical choir that's not a clerical choir, liturgical choir.
Speaker 0 20:11 There are clerks inquire like monks or priests or clerics. They're sitting up here and you can pick them out cause they were choir dress. That's what all the ultra boys are wearing is choir. Grassic a cat, a Satana, a Catholic and a and whatnot. At any rate, it rubrics, uh, apply to cleric seed choir, priests in the servers. Now the funny, here's the funny part, you might not know, so please listen to whole explanation. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as rubrics for the faithful. And why is that? Because you're assisting in mass and in AA. That's not bad. That's why you're in the nave. I'm up here working in heaven and you're down there on the church cleric and I come down front them. Let me explain that briefly. Customers so highly valued in the mind of the church, but if it's a venerable customs since last century or longer, then even if it's against the law, it overrides the rubric.
Speaker 0 21:03 I'll give you a concrete example. When you see the guys coming in, there's a crucifix chain. You have one guy carrying the cross, two altar boys doing it. We do that in America with that, against the rubrics, but it would be against the law to get rid of it. It's everywhere else in the world that I know of. Anyway. That's only for a bishop. Only a bishop rate's a crucifer going in, but everywhere in America, it's the customer in America, it would actually be wrong to change that because that's how we do things in America. So that's a nationwide one that we do right here within our borders plus trainings and our seminary, the Frenchman, they've never seen this thing before and they're all freaking out say, well you're in America right now. That's how we do it here. And it would be wrong to do it the Australian way or the French way cause it's in America anyway.
Speaker 0 21:49 The testing is so highly valued. Then if it's a venerable costume, it has the force of law not knowing this can often lead to somewhat a museum situation. Since I joined the fraternity, I've worked directly under four different priests all from another country, all of whom were very insistent that the one and only correct set of 1962 rubrics that the face that must be used at mass where the ones they have, but you might guess that out of the four different priests, they had four different sets of rubrics. Even up at the altar and even from a small country like theirs, it has about one 60th. The practicing Catholic population is ours. They still have a lot of different local customs and that's fine. That's how the Catholic church is. For example, all three boys I'm told and Leone do a little curtsy to the priest instead of about now.
Speaker 0 22:38 That's fine in the own, but you're going to have to be looking for a new pre. If any of these guys started curtsying. To me anyway, there's an ancient principle. We've all heard St Paul puts it when in Rome do as aroma. And so after prayer and reflection, it seems to me that's the only possible principle to invoke when in Rome do as the Roman being, as it says, America, I'll just put together, and I'm not saying it's infallible, a typical American postures for low and high mass. That's the obvious choice. There's a little handout available. It's probably pretty close to what everybody has in their hand. Messer liturgical business. Let's close with a thought from St Francis FCC About Holiness, about true holiness at the holy sacrifice of the mass. Saint Francis said, Nan should tremble the world. Shit quake. All heaven should be deeply mood when the son of God appears on the altar in the hands of the priest. So prepare yourself.
