MODELS OF THE FUTURE CHURCH

(thanks to Terence Weldon at Queering the Church for the link to this article at dot.commonweal. Very interesting comments follow the article at the site. )

 

Models of the Future Church

May 9, 2010, 11:16 pm

Posted by Lisa Fullam

Back in 2004, the archdiocese of Boston announced the closure in one fell swoop of more than 18% of its parishes . In the midst of all the shock, sadness, anger and dismay, some parishes decided to refuse the order to close, and began to maintain round-the-clock vigils in the churches to keep them open. Saturday’s Boston Globe included a piece from a member of one such church. Money quote:

While the universal Catholic Church seems on the verge of imploding under the weight of its own moral crisis, the weekly gathering of this close-knit congregation generates a palpable spirituality that is rare and unique.

The St. James phenomenon (replicated across sister parishes in Massachusetts that also chose vigil over closure) is changing church culture by pioneering a post-institutional brand of grass-roots Catholicism.

I’m intrigued by this. We all know of situations of priestless parishes still under the auspices of various dioceses: a priest may zoom through to dispense the sacraments, but day-to-day pastoral care is carried out by non-ordained people. One troublesome point in these parishes is the separation of the practice of ministry from the celebration of the sacraments, in which the latter are rare special events run by strangers, not a regular part of the worship life of the community. A second concern is the lack of uniform standards for people running such churches–one parish might be run by a gifted lay minister with an M.Div., but the next might be run by a person without a shred of theological or pastoral training. 

But these “Heavens, no, we won’t go” parishes are a different kettle of fish. Instead of divorcing ministry from sacraments, these communities have formed a new model of church with generally egalitarian leadership, continuing to celebrate Eucharist as the “source and summit of the Christian life,” and developing a vibrant sense of community. The divorce here is of the community from the hierarchy of the Church. (I still worry about the theological training of the leadership. But there are lots of qualified people thereabouts–if theologically-literate leadership is important to the community, they can find people with both vocation and education to lead and/or teach.) 

We’re at a time of increasingly diverse “versions” of Catholic parish life, including the two I mention here. With or without the cooperation of Church leaders, the Church is changing. 

To which I'd like to add this quoted discussion from NCR which I posted last September:

It was Schillebeeckx who contended in his 1980 book Ministry: Leadership in the Community of Jesus Christ that the church had gone awry by connecting the faithful’s right to Eucharist to some “magical power” of the hierarchy to ordain, thereby disconnecting it from the community of Christians. He noted that the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century had declared any ordination of a priest or deacon illegal, as well as null and void, unless the person being ordained had been chosen by a particular community to be its leader.

Because the church has basically ignored that clear directive of the early church throughout the second millennium, Schillebeeckx recommended “new possibilities” for reconnecting the Eucharist to its community roots, even if such actions contradict current church law. In “Church and Ministry,” the newly released document, the Dominicans put forward such “new possibilities” as this: “Men and women can be chosen to preside at the Eucharist by the church community; that is, ‘from below,’ and can then ask a local bishop to ordain these people ‘from above.’ ”

If, however, “a bishop should refuse a confirmation or ordination” of such persons “on the basis of arguments not involving the essence of the Eucharist, such as a requirement that deacons or priests be celibate, parishes may move forward without the bishops’ participation, remaining confident “that they are able to celebrate a real and genuine Eucharist when they are together in prayer and share bread and wine." 

taken from National Catholic Reporter interview, December 14, 2007

This quote has always had a powerful effect on me, as a daring solution to so many ills besetting the Catholic community in this time, the sexual scandals being at the top of the list. It would require extraordinary daring to implement, however, and culturally would be next to impossible to receive widespread acceptance (to judge by the comments and reactions at dot.commonweal. to the above article.) However, in those communities deprived of the services of a priest for as long as a year (1 yearly visit for confession and baptisms in some remote mountain villages in South America), the 'lay catechist' should surely be entitled to lead the community in the celebration of the Eucharist. But I've also proposed elsewhere that communities of disaffected gay Catholics, who feel bound in conscience to remain outside the formal worship of the Church, should then gather together and celebrate the Supper of the Lord.

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The Holy Mystery in Saint Jacob's and Beyond the Institutional Church

This afternoon, I treated myself to  a lovely lunch at the trendy French Parisian Brasserie, La Provence,  on Stuparska Street in Old Town Prague. Cream of cucumber soup, followed by  salmon trout filet with creamy pumpkin sauce, a small carafe of French white wine, a lemon tart and cappuccino. A very lovely, peaceful experience on a gorgeous if slightly crisp, bright and sunny spring day in Prague. Following that, however, I made a visit to one of my favorite churches in Prague, St. Jacob the Bigger, with its magnificent baroque interior. St. Jacob's has one of the most magnificent old organs of any church in Prague and is frequently used as a concert hall. However, in contrast to the more frequently used Sts. Simon and Jude, which I described two postings ago, St. Jacobs has not been de-consecrated and still harbors the Eucharist and gives off a distinct if delicate aura of holiness and sacredness. By my good fortune, a spontaneous organ concert was underway, most likely a practice session, but the sounds were truly magnificent and a number of pilgrims and tourists were held captive by the glorious strains of Bach and Handel and Petr Eben and Klement Slavický, among those I could recognize. The impromptu concert lasted for about 30 minutes and during that time I felt myself carried away with joy into a place of deep interior silence and peace, touched in the soul both by the music and by the aura of sacredness of this consecrated church. The feeling is distinctly different from the de-consecrated St. Simon and Jude - or is that my imagination, triggered by the knowledge that the Eucharist is reserved in St. Jacob's, but has long fled the scene in Saint Simon and Jude.? Is the feeling purely a figment? Not a bit of it. When I first entered Simon and Jude over a year ago for a concert, I had no idea it had been de-consecrated, I was only aware of a flat and empty feeling - an absence of presence - a decorative empty shell of great beauty and magnificent acoustics - but without that sense of sacred space that characterizes a blessed house of worship. This made me suspect the Eucharist was not reserved, so I looked around in vain for a sanctuary lamp and found none lit, then went outside to talk to the woman at the ticket desk and she informed me that the church had not been used formally for some years, so there was my answer. At some point the Bishop of Prague would have entered the sanctuary and uttered words to this effect:

“Lord God, in your great goodness you once accepted to your honor and glory this building, now secularized. Receive our praise and thanksgiving for the blessings, help, and comfort which you bestowed upon your people in this place."

Back to Saint Jacob's and the delicate sense of sacred presence that a consecrated church seems to emanate - this afternoon I felt immensely grateful for this great gift which the catholic tradition has bestowed upon us and passed onto us down the ages, a gift that outweighs all of the horrific scandals of recent days committed principally by episcopal prelates who dishonor this sacred presence. Be that as it may, the Presence survives within its 'imprisonment' and transcends the very grave limitations of the keepers of the keys of the institution.  And the magnificent baroque interior honors this presence in one particular example of the human creative imagination - expressing through ornate richness the treasure that lies within. However, I also felt that as valuable as the magnificent chamber may be and as grateful as we may be for these beautiful churches and cathedrals that house the Eucharist - they are not absolutely necessary. The Presence survives outside them, within breakaway communities, within the Old Catholic Church, within home Eucharists, where ever 'two or three are gathered in my name.' The institutional church has provided a temporary home and place of worship, but the mystery of sacred Presence that is the Eucharist is not contained or controlled in any absolute sense by the hierarchy and its belief in the absolute power and superiority of the priestly caste and the necessity of an ordination rite that occurs within 'the line of succession'. In these terrible times of scandal with the urgent cries for 'reform,' this to me is the most urgent reform of all - freeing the Eucharistic mystery from ecclesiastical control, because it is this illusion of control that gives the present patriarchal system its illusory sense of power.  Break the illusion of control and we break the stranglehold of power and set the divine mystery free! We will always need structures of some sort and roles of humble leadership in a spirit of service, but the monopoly of power over the sacramental system must be revealed for what it is - an illusion of power that is not Christ like and that is not necessary for a truly catholic celebration of communion in the Spirit of the Crucified and Risen Christ.

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GARABANDAL AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE EUCHARIST

Angels figure very prominently in the Marian apparitions of Garabandal, Spain, mainly distributing 'Holy Communion' to the four young visionaries. The essential message of Garabandal, apart from the now familiar call to penance and conversion, is respect for the Eucharist, reverence for priests and the necessity of 'obedience to the Church,' making this Marian visitation more than palatable to the Vatican leadership of the Church. This is in stark contrast to the ecumenical message of Medjugorje, which originated in Communist Yugoslavia in the 80's and witnessed to the necessity for respect and tolerance between religions, particularly Islam and Christianity, some years before the outbreak of the horrific religious/ethnic wars of the 90's. This brings up a very insightful comment made by William Lindsey in response to an earlier post here (September 10):

This makes me wonder about everyone's certainty that the Lady/Gospa is the Virgin Mary. I understand the identification of the person the visionaries saw/see with Mary.

But implicit in that identification is a whole set of assumptions about the "kind of" Virgin Mary that people see when they encounter Mary, which may not be true to the original experience at all. As an example: was the lady with roses whom Juan Diego encountered the Virgin Mary of European iconography, or someone completely different, an Aztec maiden with a different form and message?

I think this comment is spot on. The religious right so quickly assumes that these visitations  (and the Lady behind them) are a vindication of their own positions on so many issues within the Church, but significantly a large number of 'rightists' are outraged by Medjugorje's ecumenical tolerance (I've decided not to link to the comments, because they are quite toxic). On the other hand, Garabandal (among the minority who are aware of it) is universally taken to be an endorsement and confirmation of conservatives' outrage at many of the reforms of Vatican II and what they take to be a resulting neglect of the sacred gift of the Eucharist. Comments tend to focus on the diminished  reverence for the Sacrament, the use of inappropriate vessels, the relegating of the Eucharist to a side altar, etc. However, in fairness to the conservative view, I have to say there is a point to this, an inevitable loss of 'attunement' to the charismatic dimension of the Eucharist, but a loss which is perfectly understandable during a time of reform and re-balancing of emphases within the Church. It is a question of finding the right balance and not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Personally, I have a great devotion to the practice of "Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament" and was quite overwhelmed by the Eucharistic vigil at the Church of the Assumption at Stara Boleslav on the eve of Pope Benedict's visit and mass the next day (an experience I keep trying to get back to and reflect on).  This is very much a 'conservative' devotion and very much in vogue here in the Czech Republic. However, this radical gay fairie has a very heterodox relationship to the Eucharist, which I touched on (only very briefly) in a previous post, Emmaus Walk, yet I felt an instant and very powerful connection to the apparitions at Garabandal when they first hit the news in the 1960's without fully understanding the connection. I visited the village in Northern Spain twice, once during the same summer as the election and death of John Paul I and once some fifteen years later, after having passed through a very powerful, transformative experience regarding the Eucharist, which placed me very far outside 'orthodox' conceptions of the sacrament. It was only on this second visit that I clearly understood why the sense of connection was so powerful. Garabandal is the Marian apparition of the Eucharist par excellence and this very heterdox gay fairie was being assured by the 'Lady of the Pines' that the particular charism of the Eucharist that characterizes an essential part of my vocation was more than included in her embrace and blessing at Garabandal (according to  my own fallible, subjective experience, of course). In other words, Our Lady of Garabandal is much larger  and all-inclusive than the "Virgin Mary" of traditional Catholic piety. Which is why Bill's comment resonated with me so powerfully: implicit in that identification is a whole set of assumptions about the "kind of" Virgin Mary that people see when they encounter Mary, which may not be true to the original experience at all.

Without getting into details, (which I hope to elaborate on at a later date), I believe we are at a momentous turning point where the Sacraments of  Eucharist and Ordination are concerned. Somehow, the Eucharist needs to be freed from its present very rigid ecclesiastical control and its absolute dependence on a restricted rite of sacramental ordination. This is such an enormous issue theologically, and one does not tamper lightly with this most sacred element of the Roman Catholic tradition, nor fly in the face of this tradition's profound sense of sacerdotal mystery and the concomitant need for a minister who is specially blessed to officiate and represent the community at its own Eucharist sacrificial celebration. Nonetheless, we are at a radical turning point in the evolution of this sacrament. It began with the Jewish tradition of consuming the sacred temple bread only once a year and only by the high priest alone, with the sacred bread only reserved in the great temple in Jerusalem. It evolved through Christian creative adaptation into daily celebration and consumption of the sacred bread and wine, and its reservation in  Churches worldwide (and I'm not implying any sense of Christian supersessionism over Judaism here). It is my deeply held conviction that we are slowly (and clumsily) moving into the next stage of spiritual evolution of this Sacrament, where the Eucharist will move out of exclusive residence in Churches and  will be increasingly celebrated within intimate Christian communities and families, with parents celebrating the Eucharist with their children much like the Jewish seder and with the Eucharist reserved in Christian homes. It may take a century or more for this development to occur, but I believe we are riding the wings of the Spirit and this profound liberation is at hand.

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EUCHARIST IN THE HOME

This wonderful quote comes from the blog Emmaus Walk. Read the entire article here.

Was thinking as a result of the recent Episcopal and Lutheran conventions in which thousands of dollars or more is spent to bring everyone together to have cantankerous battles over women bishops, gay and lesbian clergy and relationships, married priests, not to mention the upkeep of church buildings, that perhaps another way exists for being Church. (Large national synods are coming in the Roman Catholic Church soon here in the States, with the impetus coming from 99% of the church membership--so-called lay folks--not from the hierarchy--so this applies here as well).

Why don't we look to our Jewish brethren for some guidance? Perhaps we could move 'church' back into the home. It seems to me that we could ordain one or two members of a family to serve as celebrants for the household or extended family. This would be similar to Passover or weekly Shabbat (Sabbath) dinners in which bread and wine are blessed in the middle of the family. Ordinations could be held in monastery or convent chapels. Perhaps we might have places to celebrate great feasts with a larger community for those who so wish. We might have servant-bishops as resource persons not rulers. 

Br. Yossi Lopez-Hineynu.

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SOLUTION TO CRISIS OF MINISTRY? SCHILLEBEECKX ON EUCHARISTIC PRESIDERS

It was Schillebeeckx who contended in his 1980 book Ministry: Leadership in the Community of Jesus Christ that the church had gone awry by connecting the faithful’s right to Eucharist to some “magical power” of the hierarchy to ordain, thereby disconnecting it from the community of Christians. He noted that the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century had declared any ordination of a priest or deacon illegal, as well as null and void, unless the person being ordained had been chosen by a particular community to be its leader.

Because the church has basically ignored that clear directive of the early church throughout the second millennium, Schillebeeckx recommended “new possibilities” for reconnecting the Eucharist to its community roots, even if such actions contradict current church law. In “Church and Ministry,” the newly released document, the Dominicans put forward such “new possibilities” as this: “Men and women can be chosen to preside at the Eucharist by the church community; that is, ‘from below,’ and can then ask a local bishop to ordain these people ‘from above.’ ”

If, however, “a bishop should refuse a confirmation or ordination” of such persons “on the basis of arguments not involving the essence of the Eucharist, such as a requirement that deacons or priests be celibate, parishes may move forward without the bishops’ participation, remaining confident “that they are able to celebrate a real and genuine Eucharist when they are together in prayer and share bread and wine."

taken from National Catholic Reporter interview, December 14, 2007

This quote has always had a powerful effect on me, as a daring solution to so many ills besetting the Catholic community in this time, the sexual scandals being at the top of the list. It would require extraordinary daring to implement, however, and culturally would be next to impossible to receive widespread acceptance. However, in those communities deprived of the services of a priest for as long as a year (1 yearly visit for confession and baptisms in some remote mountain villages in South America), the 'lay catechist' should surely be entitled to lead the community in the celebration of the Eucharist. But I've also proposed elsewhere that communities of disaffected gay Catholics, who feel bound in conscience to remain outside the formal worship of the Church, should then gather together and celebrate the Supper of the Lord.

Read More