We Are Blind to Ourselves: Liturgical Prayer and the Body of Christ

(This Throwback was first published on 24 June 2015 on the blog Principium et Finis)  

  There is a Protestant radio station just two clicks away from the local Catholic station on my radio dial.  I was listening in the car on my way to work recently, and heard a brief snippet of the non-Catholic station.  I tuned in right in the middle of a sentence in which someone was saying: ". . . the importance of sin.  So, we'll be taking a walk through John's Gospel this morning . . ."  At which point, as I turned to the Catholic station, I thought to myself: "But what will he say about John chapter 6?", where we find "He who eats my body and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (John 6:53).  Interestingly, the first thing I heard when I continued to the Catholic station (The Presence, FM 106.7 here in the Portland area) was a priest discussing . . . John chapter 6.  

The Body of Christ

    Now, one might say this was just a coincidence, but if so, it certainly is a very suggestive coincidence.  As it happens, it reminded me of something I'd been mulling over since my recent post on Pascal's Wager.  I had quoted an atheist critic of the Wager, who said "most disbelievers disbelieve simply because they knows of no compelling evidence or reasons to believe."  In that particular post I dismissed this assertion as no more than unsupported opinion, and pointed out that, if true, it actually undermined the argument it was supposed to be supporting.  And I really don't know how one could prove such a thing anyway, or disprove it, given not only the impossibility of knowing what is in another person's heart, but our own inability, at times at least, to recognize our own true motivations.  I do know that a number of non-believers have told me explicitly that they turned away from God not because they were persuaded at first by rational arguments, but because His laws forbid doing things they wanted to do; in other words, they had an incentive to disbelieve.  I suspect that for all of us, whether or not we find something to be "compelling" depends, to some degree, on whether or not it is what we want (or expect) to hear.

    I think something like this may be at least part of the reason that our separated brethren in the Protestant communities similarly seem to miss the more "Catholic" passages in scripture (missing, for example, what seems to us to be the rather obvious import of Christ’s Eucharistic Discourse in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel).  Let me hasten to add that I'm not equating them to atheists; on the contrary, very many Protestants have a deep and sincere faith, and live exemplary Christian lives (case in point: the relatives of the nine people murdered last week at the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, whose willingness to forgive the killer [here] is nothing if not Christ-like).  They have been formed in a tradition, however, that to varying degrees has rejected the incarnational aspects of Christianity as it was understood and practiced for the first millennium and a half after Christ said "You are Peter, and on this Rock I will build my Church." (Matthew 16:18) They simply can not maintain their understanding of what Christianity means and at the same time take at face value what Jesus says here:

I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. (John 6:51-55)

Pieter Breugel's "The Blind Leading The Blind"

 
  It is part of our nature, of course, to be blind to ourselves, and to interpret things from our personal perspective, which is as true for Catholics as it is for protestants and atheists.  I think that is a very large part of the reason why formal prayers, including private devotions (the rosary, novenas, etc.) and liturgical prayer such as the Liturgy of the Hours play so prominent a part in traditional Christianity. There is certainly a place for spontaneous and personal prayer; sometimes it’s appropriate and necessary to focus on ourselves and needs of which we are consciously aware. There is a danger, however, that we can start to see our spiritual lives as being primarily about us and what we perceive to be our "needs".  That is the reverse of what St. Paul is talking about when he says: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). Liturgical prayer, on the other hand, is "inside out" prayer, which flows from us toward God. Instead of trying to draw God to us, it pulls us out of ourselves and unites us with Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church.  That is the beautiful and powerful symbolism of the traditional manner of saying Mass with the whole congregation, including the priest, facing the East together. Here we are not looking to ourselves or at each other, but as one body looking outward at the rising sun (literally ad orientem), representing the God who rises again and brings us life [incidentally, since I first published this post last year, ad orientem worship is showing signs of staging a comeback] .  

    Liturgical prayer is just one tangible way in which the Church reminds us that we are part of something bigger, that we are “members” of the Body of Christ (see 1 Corinthians chapter 12). We need to be reminded that, like Jesus’ Disciples, we sometimes need to be told how to pray (see Luke chapter 11 and Matthew chapter 6), and because we are both soul and body we need tangible reminders, and concrete means of praying to the God who is pure spirit.  Like St. Thomas, we need to touch Christ’s wounds (see John chapter 20).  And, of course, unless we eat his body and drink his blood we have no life in us.

Christ is King of All . . . Even the Holidays

An earlier version of this Worth Revisiting post was first published November 12th, 2014. To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.  

So Paul, standing in the middle of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.  For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, “To an unknown god.”  What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” (Acts 17:22-23)

     Halloween will soon be past, Christmas soon will be coming, and not only are the geese getting fat but the doubters and mockers are getting ready for another round of “demystifying” the Incarnation by pointing out (or making up) connections to pagan holidays and practices . . . and then we’ll go through it all again at Easter time. This seems a good time to take a few moments to reflect on the holiday (i.e., Holy Day) coming up this weekend, and to look forward to those that are to come.

Good Cop, Bad Cop     

    First, a little background. Many, many years ago, in the days of my neo-pagan youth, I recall reading that the Christians, as they converted previously heathen peoples, intentionally built churches on what had been pagan holy sites: the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome, for instance, was built on the ruins of what was believed to have been a temple dedicated to the Roman goddess of wisdom.  In the same way, countless churches were built adjacent to ancient circles and standing stones in Northwestern Europe, including a whole series of churches dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, the scourge of Satan (the most famous of these is Mont St. Michel, pictured above), which were situated on the hill tops that were considered especially sacred by the pre-Christian inhabitants.

     There was a two-fold purpose to this practice, an ancient precursor to what we today call the “Bad Cop, Good Cop” routine (wherein the suspect confesses to the Nice Policeman, the Good Cop, hoping to earn his protection from the Mean Policeman, or Bad Cop).  On the one hand, we have a concrete sign of the triumph of Christianity, a church built sometimes on the very foundations of a previous pagan establishment, sending as clear a message as one of those paintings of St. Michael with his foot on the Devil’s neck.  Consider also the very name of the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva: “Holy Mary over Minerva”.  The name does not simply tell us which building previously occupied the site, it proclaims the victory of the Mother of God over the pagan goddess.  This is the “Bad Cop” approach.

     We can see the “Good Cop” strategy in the passage from the Acts of the Apostles at the top of the page.  St. Paul commends the Athenians for their religious devotion, which may well be an expression of a real desire to find God, but directed toward false divinities.  Rather than condemn the Athenians for idolatry, he seeks to redirect them toward the True Lord.  In much the same spirit, the Church seems to have concluded that previously idolatrous peoples would accept conversion more easily if they could worship the True God in the same places that they and their ancestors had been accustomed to commune with the old gods.  We can see this as an example of “Baptizing the World”, of sanctifying what is good or neutral in the outside world, and using it to build up the Kingdom of God.  And in cases such as this, how powerful must the effect have been when the new Christians had a tangible sign, in the old familiar place, of the Victory of Christ?

Trick or Treat?

     We can see a similar process at work in the case of many Holy Days.  Not that the Church created them for the purpose of replacing pagan festivals, as the naysayers claim: the Christian feasts commemorate real events in Salvation History.   Christian feasts do tend, however, to subsume and Christianize some pagan practices, which the Church often allows to happen.  Take Halloween, for example.  For the past couple of weeks the Catholic blogosphere has been filled with commentary, some arguing that Halloween is no more than a modern day pagan bacchanal, others that it is at worst harmless fun, and still others explaining its Christian source and purpose.  One of the better discussions is this one [here] by Nathan Barontini.  Of the “Four Halloween Mistakes for Catholics to Avoid” Nathan’s mistake #1 is thinking that “Halloween is ‘Pagan’ Rather than Christian.”  He points out that it is tied to the feast of All Saints established by Pope Gregory III in the eight century in conjunction with the dedication of a chapel to “All Saints” and not, as he says, “to compete with some Celtic pagan feast.”  Quite so.  At the same time, one can make a case that some pagan traditions did indeed attach themselves to the celebration of All Hallows Eve, but here we see them serving a new master.  As Mr. Barontini says (under the heading of “Mistake # 3 – Make Halloween ‘No Fun’”:

The traditional ghouls, skeletons, vampires, and zombies all speak to a simple post-Easter reality - Christ has conquered death. At Halloween we mock death, we laugh in its face, proclaiming with St. Paul, "O death where is thy sting, O grave where is thy victory?" (1 Cor 15:55).

In other words, like Holy Mary Over Minerva, or St. Michael curb-stomping the Devil, our celebrations on the eve of All Saints Day invoke images of death and corruption in order to show Christ’s victory over the forces they represent.

Our Battle Is Not with Flesh And Blood

     This is not to say that we should disregard those Christians who warn about the demonic aspects of Halloween: when Christ is out of the picture, all that’s left is death and corruption, and the powers of darkness are left in possession of the field of battle.  I have noticed over the past couple of decades that, as the wider culture becomes less Christian, observances of Halloween are becoming both more elaborate and more grotesque.  And there is always a risk when we set out to “Baptize the World” that, if we are not properly fortified and sustained by the Faith and the Sacraments, the World may instead have its way with us.  We should not, however, let the Devil have the last word. 

Our task is first to “put on the full armor of God” (see Ephesians 6:3-17) and then set out to reclaim Halloween for Christ, rather than surrender it to the hosts of the Evil One.

     It is good to bear all this in mind as we approach the so-called “holiday season” (that is, what a more Christian era called the "Christmas Season").  We will hear a chorus of claims that our Feast of the Nativity is really “only” a thinly disguised form of the Roman Saturnalia, or some Mithraic feast, or something similar (never mind that the Birth of Jesus really happened, and these other things are based on fantasies).  Even if it’s true (and most such claims are highly debatable) that Christmas took it’s gift-giving from Saturnalia, or Christmas trees from some pagan Germanic Yule tradition, and so on, well, so what?  If these things ever did have pagan origins, now they are in the service of Christ, who “will reign until he puts all enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25).  So, be of good cheer, and when the time comes, throw another Yule Log on the fire, because Christ is King of all.

Has Modesty Become A Dirty Word? Yoga Pants, Cage Fighting & Catholic Teaching

Outerwear or Underwear?

    Here’s a curious thing.  A couple years ago I started noticing that women had done away with their skirts, and were walking around in public wearing nothing but tights (which I had always thought of as undergarments) below the waist. This seemed to me to create certain problems in regard to feminine modesty, but few others seemed to find it remarkable.

A Young Lady wearing "Yoga Pants" and a magazine ( uscatholic.org)

   I was soon made to understand that when tights were promoted from underwear to outerwear they earned the right to be called “yoga pants”, and that no one but a few stuffy old geezers had any objections. I had almost despaired of anybody in the Catholic world even posing the question of whether women in public places really ought to be displaying the contours of their bodies in quite such exacting detail when I came across an article called “Yoga Pants And Catholic Social Teaching”, authored by Stephen Schneck, Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America.  “Ah”, I thought, “no doubt Dr. Schneck will address the dehumanizing effects of fashions that present women as sex objects, or the importance Catholic tradition places on modesty and mutual respect between the sexes, or perhaps even the importance of purity.”  

The Bait and Switch

   Well, no. Dr. Schneck mentions the trendy, form-hugging women’s wear only as a hook to draw readers to a brief discussion on the role of the economic marketplace in Catholic Social teaching.  The result is a missed opportunity, and a disservice to both topics. He says:

How many millions of us have purchased yoga pants or baseball hats with flat brims? No doubt some of us do yoga and play baseball and need the appropriate uniform, but something else is going on here. Where did our desire to make those purchases come from? . . .  the marketplace that is fashion . . .

Catholic social teaching says nothing about yoga pants or baseball caps. But the church does say something about market forces . . . Traditional church teachings have some issues with markets.

And off he goes.  First of all, while it’s true the words “yoga pants” never appear in any magisterial documents, I think one can make the case that the Church never the less has rather a lot to say on the topic, as we shall see below.  But first, a word or two about Dr. Schneck’s primary target, the role of markets in the Church’s Social Teaching, which is more relevant to the topic of modesty than it may at first sound.  Catholic teaching on economics is a very complex topic, and it’s hard to do it justice in a short article (and I speak as one who has tried, for instance in my post “Pope Francis Is Not A Communist . . . He’s A Catholic”).  Dr. Schneck does do a good job of summarizing the negative side of the Church’s teaching. He points out that markets function outside of our control.  He refers to Pope Francis’s comment that they “have no human face”, and can have destructive consequences, especially for “those people who live on the margins of society.”

One could get the impression from Scheck’s brief discussion that the Catholic perspective on markets is uniformly negative, but that is not the case.  In magisterial documents dating from Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum in 1891 Popes have reaffirmed the right to private property, and of individuals to do business; they also acknowledge that only markets can harness the productivity necessary to provide for the material needs of the world’s people (see especially St. John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus).  Schneck alludes to the leftish tone of some of Pope Francis’ language in Laudato Si’ and other places, which is undeniable, but it’s worth pointing out that Francis himself has insisted he’s not a communist or socialist.

The Dignity of the Human Person

Papal teaching emphasizes the dignity of the human person (Reuters)

   In any case, the foundation for the Church’s teaching in this area is the dignity of the human person, not some theory of economics.  It is not that markets are bad, but that they are amoral, impersonal forces.  Our dignity demands that we who were made in the image and likeness of God do not let mere things like markets make moral decisions for us. The same is true of government programs, political movements and ideologies, and any number of other similar forces.  In Laudato Si’ Pope Francis warns us against the temptation to surrender our moral decision making to the “technical fix”:

        Any technical solution which science claims to offer will be powerless to solve the serious problems of our world if humanity loses its compass, if we lose sight of the great motivations which make it possible for us to live in harmony, to make sacrifices and to treat others well. Believers themselves must constantly feel challenged to live in a way consonant with their faith and not to contradict it by their actions. (Laudato Si’ 200, my bold type)

   Ironically, in yoga pants Schneck introduces a perfect vehicle to illustrate the dynamic among market forces, morality, and personal choices, but he drops it as soon as he starts drawing close to his proper target.  By speaking of yoga pants so dismissively, he suggests that this is one instance in which we can comfortably let the market choose for us. He reinforces this impression with his breezy closing: “My best thinking happens, coincidentally, as I walk, with my baseball cap worn the old-fashioned way. If yoga pants do the trick for you, go for it.”  I think he is mistaken.  I think that yoga pants are a perfect example of how the market can override our better judgment.  In this case, our desire to be fashionable, or our fear of seeming prudish, can lead us to ignore the virtue of modesty.  

The Virtue That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Modesty is a very unfashionable concept today.  Even Dr. Schneck’s sly suggestion that there just might be an objection to yoga pants, which he introduces only to swat it away as a non-issue, elicits numerous indignant comments such as “Oh, come on, it’s only yoga pants!”  And it’s true that this particular style of dress (or near-undress), in and of itself, does not spell the doom of Western Civilization. At the same time, there are serious reasons well-grounded in Catholic teaching and tradition to criticize this form-fitting fashion.  More than that, the widespread acceptance of yoga pants makes them an excellent example of the sort of groupthink whose deleterious effects Dr. Schneck decries in economic markets.

    So is there or isn’t there a Catholic teaching on yoga pants? Well, we must concede that the term “yoga pants” does not appear in any magisterial document, but a great deal has been said over the centuries about purity and modesty. Below are excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s lengthy summation of this voluminous body of teaching (bold italics mine):

2518 The sixth beatitude proclaims, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." "Pure in heart" refers to those who have attuned their intellects and wills to the demands of God's holiness, chiefly in three areas: charity; chastity or sexual rectitude; love of truth and orthodoxy of faith. There is a connection between purity of heart, of body, and of faith . . .

2519 The "pure in heart" are promised that they will see God face to face and be like him. Purity of heart is the precondition of the vision of God. Even now it enables us to see according to God, to accept others as "neighbors"; it lets us perceive the human body - ours and our neighbor's - as a temple of the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of divine beauty.

II. THE BATTLE FOR PURITY

2520 Baptism confers on its recipient the grace of purification from all sins. But the baptized must continue to struggle against concupiscence of the flesh and disordered desires . . .

2521 Purity requires modesty, an integral part of temperance. Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their solidarity.

Feminine, attractive, and modest: Tia Alese Wong in her "Modest Church Look"

2522 Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love . . .  Modesty is decency. It inspires one's choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet.

2523 There is a modesty of the feelings as well as of the body. It protests, for example, against the voyeuristic explorations of the human body in certain advertisements, or against the solicitations of certain media that go too far in the exhibition of intimate things. Modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of fashion and the pressures of prevailing ideologies.

2524 . . . Teaching modesty to children and adolescents means awakening in them respect for the human person.

2525 Christian purity requires a purification of the social climate. It requires of the communications media that their presentations show concern for respect and restraint. Purity of heart brings freedom from widespread eroticism . . .

    So, when we are judging a fashion or manner of dress (again, yoga pants are just an example) from a genuinely Catholic Christian perspective, we need to ask ourselves: does it discourage or encourage “voyeuristic explorations of the human body”? Does it bring “freedom from widespread eroticism” or instead ensnare the wearer (and potentially observers) in that eroticism by encouraging "unhealthy curiosity"? Does it promote “the dignity of persons” and “respect for the human person”?

Colleen Hammond

The Eyes Have It

    Former beauty queen and television newscaster Colleen Hammond has written extensively on the subject of modesty in women’s dress.  In her book Dressing with Dignity, Hammond shares the results of studies done by advertisers in the 1960’s and 70’s, when “pants became common attire for women and girls for school, work and even church.” The data held some interesting conclusions:

Advertising agencies quickly prepared marketing research to find out the reaction of men to a woman wearing pants.  Do you know what they found?  Using newly developed technology, they tracked the path that a man’s eyes take when looking at  woman in pants.  They found that when a man looked at a woman in pants from the back, he looked directly at her bottom.  When he looked at a woman wearing pants from the front, advertisers found that his eyes dropped directly to a woman’s most private and intimate area.  Not to her face!  Not to her chest! (Dressing With Dignity, 49)

That sounds an awful lot like “voyeuristic explorations of the human body” to me.  And these studies were done on women wearing ordinary pants. Consider how much more profound the effect when women are appearing in public (and, yes, even in church) wearing pants that are little better than a coat of paint over their bottom and “most private and intimate area.”

Enter The Gladiatrix

    Speaking of paint . . . well, let’s just say that it’s getting harder to separate the literal from the metaphorical these days.  In other words, we now come to the curious case of one Ronda Rousey.  Miss Rousey has achieved fame as a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter.  That is to say, she makes her living beating the daylights out of other women for the amusement of the (mostly male) crowd. And she’s good at it, or was.  She was the first female MMA champion, and went undefeated until last November, when she lost a match to a young woman named Holly Holm. She didn’t just lose: she was knocked out by a kick to her face that put her out of commission for a long time.  As an article on People.com explained several weeks after the fight:

The stitches in her lip still dissolving, and a few of her teeth still unstable from Holm's fight-ending kick to the face, Rousey admits to ESPN The Magazine in its "Ideas of the Year" issue, on newsstands Friday: "It might be three to six months before I can eat an apple, let alone take an impact."

Even now, almost a year later, it doesn’t look like Miss Rousey will be able to return to her chosen profession anytime soon, certainly not until 2017 at the earliest.

Ronda Rousey, clothed and out of the arena

    A compelling aspect of this story is that, despite her unladylike way of making a living, Miss Rousey is an attractive woman (at least she was before Miss Holm's foot put her in need of restorative dental surgery).  Her feminine beauty has gained her not one, but two, appearances in Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit edition, which has traditionally featured female models posing in decidedly immodest swimwear.  This is where the paint comes in.  Miss Rousey’s “suit” this year consisted entirely of body paint; she was, in fact, not wearing a stitch of actual clothing in the photos (sorry, I’m not posting any links).

    This raises some interesting questions.  Was Miss Rousey clothed, or was she naked? It’s true that her painted “suit” covered quite a bit more of her body than the scanty bikinis that the swimsuit models usually wear, and from the right angle it looks like she’s wearing a fairly unremarkable one-piece bathing suit.  On the other hand, how many of us wouldn’t object if our wife or daughter (or mother!) proposed going out in public wearing nothing but a coat of paint? I suspect that most of us would insist that she cover her body with some actual fabric.  

What Goes Around Comes Around

    Which brings us back to the topic of yoga pants.  How much more cover is provided, really, by the thin spandex-like fabric of yoga pants than by Miss Rousey’s body paint? It’s a question that we ought to take seriously. “Oh, come on, it’s only yoga pants!” I know, I know, yoga pants are not going to End The World As We Know It, but they are an example of just how well (or poorly) we are respecting the human person these days, particularly when that person is a woman.  Consider that not only are we sending our women out in public wearing “pants” that are barely distinguishable from a coat of paint: we are watching them knock each other’s teeth out for our entertainment; we had a Republican presidential debate before the New Hampshire primary in which not one of the candidates who was asked about it raised an objection to drafting our daughters and sisters into the armed forces;  those same armed forces themselves have just changed long-standing policy that kept women out of combat specialties such as the infantry, which means many more women sent directly into the maw of war. And we wonder why violence against women continues to be a problem.

    Our Lord tells us: "He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much” (Luke 16:10).  Likewise, those who are disrespectful in small things will be disrespectful in large ones as well.  The little things matter.  I’m not telling anybody what to wear, but I am suggesting that we who call ourselves Catholic should take the teaching of our Church seriously (teaching which, not surprisingly, tends to respond to common sense, not fashion).  Our choices need to be guided by a conscience formed by Christ’s precepts, and He has appointed the Church as the preserver and teacher of those precepts.  We have also been promised that obeying God will make us happy: “For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil” (Jeremiah 29.11). So, look around you: would you rather see the women in your life treated like the Blessed Mother, or like Ronda Rousey?