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Page 2 • Faith Today
Sacramental time zones
By Father Lawrence Madden, SJ
NC News Service
e who are Ameri
cans are notorious
for having short
memories and for
taking greater in
terest in the future than in the past.
But recently we have begun to
learn that contact with our past is
essential if we are to be healthy peo
ple and live in a healthy society.
We are showing greater interest in
the history of our country, of our
institutions, towns and cities, even
our old buildings. We seem to want
to understand their meaning and to
preserve them for future generations.
Religious ritual such as the kind
we celebrate in the sacraments also
is an activity where the past can be
encountered helpfully and creatively.
The sacraments, such as baptism
and the Eucharist, always encompass
three time zones: the past, the pre
sent and the future.
The sacraments focus in on the
presence here and now and the
power of the risen Christ. But the
sacraments celebrate the present in
the context of the past, in an at
mosphere of remembrance.
Christian liturgical prayer follows
Jewish prayer in this regard. Most
Jewish prayer began by recounting
what God had done for his chosen
people in the past.
Jewish worship recalled such
events as the deliverance from Egypt
or the giving of the covenant at
Sinai by reading from Scripture. The
Jews then gave thanks and praise to
God for his mercy and continuing
protection.
The Jews also thought that as they
remembered the events of the past
they somehow could take part in
them. Remembering made the events
of the past present for their spiritual
benefit.
When Christians assemble to
celebrate the sacraments we also
begin by reading an account of
God’s actions recorded in Scripture.
This is done to help us remember
God’s loving acts on our behalf,
especially the life, death and resur
rection of Jesus and the pouring out
of the Holy Spirit upon the church.
But we also believe that by pro
claiming the account of God’s acts
in this manner, Christ becomes pre
sent in a special way in our midst.
So the proclamation of the record of
the past is an occasion for a present
experience of Christ in our midst.
When the assembly celebrates the
sacraments such as baptism or
Eucharist, it remembers and per
forms the sacred words and actions
of the past praising God for his mer
cy. And the effects of Jesus' saving
actions in the past become present
for our salvation now.
Recalling the past in this way helps
us to find deeper meaning in our
lives in the present. It frees us into
fuller life, a life enlivened by Christ.
This remembrance of the past
transfers life and meaning to us now.
In our liturgical celebrations we
remember the past, we affirm the
present and we are prompted to look
forward with some imagination to
the future God wants to bring about.
It is a future marked with the char
acteristics of God’s kingdom: justice
for all, peace for all, love for all.
All three time zones — past pre
sent and future — are integral to
Christian liturgy. We must live in all
those zones if our lives today are to
have meaning and direction.
(Father Madden is director of the
Georgetown Center for Liturgy,
Spirituality and the Arts in
Washington, D C.)
Praying the hours away
By Father John Castelot
NC News Service
hen the bishops at
the Second Vatican
Council were trying
to come up with a
clear expression of
just what is meant by tradition, they
found it difficult to put into words.
A bishop of an Eastern rite propos
ed the notion of tradition as
understood in his branch of the
church. “For us,” he said, “tradition
is the response of God’s people to
the word of God in every age.”
In other words, it is not something
static. Rather it is dynamic, ongoing.
One way people respond to God’s
word is in prayer. A prayer that ex
emplifies this well is the Liturgy of
the Hours, the official prayer of the
church.
With its origins in ancient monas
teries, the Liturgy of the Hours has
become the daily prayer of the clergy
and of countless religious congrega
tions of men and women.
With some adaptation it also has
become the prayer of men and
women in all walks of life.
As a response to God’s word, it is
incomparable. The heart of each of
the hours is a group of Psalms. In the
Office of Readings (in the early morn
ing), one reads a passage of Scripture.
The second of the two readings is
a selection from the writings of
Christian saints and scholars, from
Clement of Rome in the first century
up to the documents of Vatican II.
Usually these selections comment on
the Scripture readings — “the
response of God’s people to the
word of God in every age.”
Praying the hours each day one
FOOD FOR THOUGHT-
Father Robert Kinast says that in the liturgy we discover our spiritual roots,
our origins. The liturgy reminds us where we came from and therefore helps
us to know who we are now.
•The Israelites always recalled their past when they worshiped God. Why
do Christians also do this, according to Father Lawrence Madden?
•How is the liturgy, with its link to the past, also linked to your future?
Second Helpings. Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers is a new
book compiled by the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy. The five-part,
400-page book includes daily blessings, morning and evening prayers and bless
ings for special times in family life. (U.S. Catholic Conference Publishing Ser
vices, 1312 Mass. Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005. 1988. Hardback,
$18.95. Also available from the same office are Daytime Prayer for $6.95 and
Night Prayer for $2.95, taken from the Liturgy of the Hours.)
has a real sense of being part of the
universal prayer of God’s people all
over the world, all around the clock.
One has a sense too of being in
volved in that dynamic process
called tradition.
While reading the responses of
others to God’s word, people are
reading and responding to that word
themselves and coming to realize just
what the author of Hebrew's meant
when he wrote, “Indeed, the word
of God is living and effective”
(Hebrews 4:12).
Praying the Liturgy of the Hours is
a daily experience of being rooted in
the past, responding to God in the
present and preparing for the future.
It is an experience of fellowship with
God’s people in every age, with the
biblical authors and the people they
wrote about, w ith Christian w'riters
of all centuries.
All of them have something to say
to us in the present. It is an experi
ence of history, of our rich heritage,
of continuity with the past and of in
timate fellowship in the present.
In Luke’s “Magnificat” Mary
praises God for her present blessings,
for doing “great things for me” now
and for looking with favor on his
special friends, the powerless, the
poor and the hungry. It ends with
“remembering his mercy, according
to the promise to our fathers, to
Abraham and to his descendants
forever” (Luke 1:49-55).
All of history is involved in Mary’s
prayer — past promise, present
fulfillment and hope for the future.
(Father Castelot is a Scripture
scholar, author and lecturer.)
A meeting
place of •
friends
By Katharine Bird
NC News Service
T he da}' began with mor
ning prayer and ended
with evening prayer at "
an Eastern Orthodox
monastery in Cambridge,
N Y , where the Rev. Robert Wilken
attended a meeting of the Lutheran-
Orthodox consultation.
Describing morning prayer, Mr.
Wilken, a Lutheran minister and *
church history professor at the
University of Virginia, said it fit
squarely in the Eastern tradition of f
spirituality.
Presented in four parts, the service
was all sung, he said, lasted more
than an hour and included lots of '■
incensing of icons.
In Rome several years ago, my
day also began with morning prayer
at the Foyer Casa Unitas, a former
hostel for travelers.
Held in the hostel’s small jewel of
a chapel, morning prayer was very *
short. Led by a nun who operated
the hostel, it included psalms, a
song, a Scripture text and a reading,
from a saint or church dignitary. It
was simple, informal and beautiful.
People today are praying the
Liturgy of the Hours, the church’s i
ancient prayer, in other settings
besides churches and chapels. They
are part of what some liturgists t
see as a growing trend in spirituality.
In Washington, D C., it is not rare
to see someone riding the subway
flipping from section to section in a
prayerbook while saying morning
prayer on the way to work.
And people pray the Liturgy of
the Hours in their homes too, using
prayerbooks developed especially for
home use.
While the unabbreviated form of
the liturgy includes prayers for seven
different times through a 24-hour
period, the prayerbooks for home
use often are simplified. Some in
clude only morning and evening
prayers. Others provide prayers and
readings for a number of the hours.
For-people at home, this prayer
offers advantages, once they get
beyond the initial difficulty posed by
learning to use an unfamiliar
prayerbook.
For many people, the prayer offers
a few moments of much needed
peace before plunging into a hectic
day, or a way to unwind before go
ing to sleep at night.
The Liturgy of the Hours also
brings people into contact with
man}’ of the vibrant, interesting
saints and holy people who preced
ed them.
Some, like the writer or writers of
the Psalms, are anonymous. But
their feelings and
needs come through
loud and clear in the
Psalms. They speak
of rage at the un
fairness of life, of
sorrow and of fear,
and of delight and
praise for the
Creator.
Others, like the
writers of the daily
readings, are iden
tified. Here we
listen to people like
St. Stephen of
Hungary in the 11th
century. He speaks
in moving tones to
“my beloved son,
my heart’s treasure
and our hope for
future descent.”
Stephen, like parents in every
age, gives his son advice. He tells
him to take care of the church be
cause it is “young and a newcomer
in our kingdom.” He also tells his
son to be kind to strangers, not just
ro important people and family.
We also meet St. Elizabeth of Por
tugal from the 14th century. Married
to a king, she has come down in
history with the reputation of a
peacemaker. She faced the difficult
trial of seeing her son and son-in-law
at loggerheads.
In the 17th century St. Francis de
Sales, bishop of Geneva, tells readers
to find a devotion suited to their
lifestyle. Adding that married people
have concerns different from those
in religious orders, he says spiritual
practices should be accommodated
to the “strength, activities and
duties” of each person.
Reading the Liturgy of the Hours
day after day, month after month,
people begin to see that the
saints and great thinkers of the
church had to struggle to make
sense of God and their lives, just as
we do today. Like us, they too
struggled with family and work and
friends.
We also learn that no emotion, no
event, no need is so insignificant
that we cannot take it to God in
prayer.
Gradually, we
begin to see that we
are part of a suppor
tive network of
friends and allies
reaching back
into time.
(Ms. Bird is
associate
editor of
Faith Today.)
Page 3 • Faith Today
TALK FAITH TODAY OVER
AT HOME...
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Watch for
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Read Foith Today
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