The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 165: Summary of Liturgical Diversity

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Together, with Fr. Mike, we arrive at the conclusion and “nugget day” for the section on liturgy and culture. Fr. Mike reiterates the importance of the fact that the Church does not abolish culture, but redeems and fulfills it. He also emphasizes that even though the Church welcomes liturgical diversity, there are still some things that are incompatible with the Faith and, therefore, unable to be incorporated into Catholic liturgy. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1204-1209. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to The Catechism in a Year Podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in Scripture and passed down the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in the years brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home this is day 165. We are reading paragraph 12-04 to 12-09. Those last little bits are nuggets.

And we're all also, as you probably know, using the ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own Catechism in your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C.I.Y. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. On one thing, I know people are like, why do you always say at the same thing every time? What do you have to tell us that it's

the ascension edition of the catacism? Why do you have to tell us that we can get the catacism into your reading plan? It's kind of like, you know, I don't know if you've ever watched the TV show, and sometimes they have the opening credits. It's always the same. Kind of like that. You know, just this is the intro. You're like, how come you keep having the intro?

This show has been on air for eight seasons. Why do you keep doing the opening credits? And the answer is because that's how you start things. And also, what are great things, streaming services? What do they have? The ability to skip the intro? A skip the opening credits? You know, you can do. you can click, you know,

fast forward, jump it ahead, 30 seconds, and then jump over all that stuff. It's right there. Also, I want to thank everybody, anybody who's supported the production of this podcast with prayers and financial gifts, could not do this without you. We made it all the way to day 165,

reading paragraphs 12.04 to 1209. Those last three paragraphs are nuggets, and the first three paragraphs are not nuggets. There are about liturgy and culture, which is, here is the culture. And culture is taken into account. Whenever the church encounters culture, it always takes that culture into account and incorporates the culture in a unique way when it comes to celebrating the liturgy. Also though, whenever that happens, the church takes great care, great care to make sure that there are not any corruptions

to the liturgy by anything it's incorporated into the culture. So that's a big thing. There is a diversity, but that diversity is not random diversity. There's a variety, but that variety has a must have, have, a very clear unity as well. And it's not kind of a willy nilly. We just accept whatever from any culture. There

are many things that can be baptized in a culture. And there are many things that in a culture, we have to say, nope, that can't be brought into the tradition of the church. So we're going to talk a little bit about those things today in paragraph 12-04 to 12-09 as we begin, let's say a prayer. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. Thank you so much for bringing us to this day. We ask you to please enlighten our minds, open our hearts so that we can appreciate the variety that you've given to us in that we can participate in the unity of the church that you have given to us through your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. They, 165 paragraphs, 1204 to 1209.

Liturgy and Culture The celebration of the Liturgy, therefore, should correspond to the genius and culture of the different peoples. In order that the mystery of Christ be made known to all the nations, to bring about the obedience of faith, it must be proclaimed, celebrated, and lived in all cultures in such a way that they themselves are not abolished by it, but redeemed and fulfilled. It is with and through their own human culture assumed and transfigured by Christ that the multitude of God's children has access to the Father in order to glorify Him in the One Spirit.

In the liturgy, above all, that of the sacraments, there is an immutable part, a part that is divinely instituted, and of which the church is the guardian, and parts that can be changed, which the church has the power and unoccasion also the duty to adapt to the cultures of recently evangelized peoples. Litturgical diversity can be a source of enrichment, but it can also provoke tensions, mutual misunderstandings, and even schisms. In this matter, it is clear that diversity must not damage unity. It must express only fidelity to the common faith, to the sacramental signs that the church

has received from Christ and to hierarchical communion. Cultural adaptation also requires a conversion of heart and even, where necessary, a breaking with ancestral customs incompatible with the Catholic faith. In brief, it is fitting that the L liturgical celebration tends to express itself in the culture of the people where the church finds herself, though without being submissive to it. Moreover, the liturgy itself generates cultures and shapes them. The diverse liturgical traditions or rights, legitimately recognized, manifest the Catholicity of the church because they signify and communicate the same mystery of Christ.

The criterion that assures unity amid the diversity of liturgical traditions is fidelity to apostolic tradition, that is, the communion in the faith and the sacraments received from the apostles, a communion that is both signified and guaranteed by apostolic succession. All right, there we have it. They 165, 121, 4 to 1209. Those last three nuggets are pretty powerful, but so are the first three paragraphs. Man, again, we're talking about this, these diversity of the surgical rights. And they grew up, why, as we said yesterday, they arose by the very reason of the Church's mission, the mission of the Church was to engage every people to go to all nations, that there is no culture, that no person, no individual, no kind of person, no race, ethnicity, no nation, no language that does not deserve to know the good news of Jesus Christ.

And so because the church has this mission, the church has gone to all the world proclaiming the good news. And when the church has encountered all of the world, it basically brings that seed. We talked about yesterday, right, that image brings that seed brings that the gift of the sacraments, brings the gift of the liturgy, brings the gift of heaven and earth kissing, right, time and eternity touching, brings the gift of the pastoral mystery. And what happens is that culture, some of the cultural images are brought into that liturgy,

right, and some of the liturgy goes into the culture. And this is something remarkable. Remarkable says, the church, again, liturgy, has lived in all cultures in such a way that they themselves are not abolished by it, but redeemed and fulfilled. So sometimes you have people who will say things like, you know, you're in the West. Say things like, well, you know, you have a Christmas tree. And again, this isn't part of the liturgy, but it's a part of our culture, the Christmas tree.

And the Christmas tree, well, that's a pagan symbol because when the church encountered Germanic peoples, they had this tradition of bringing evergreen trees into their homes as a sign that in the middle, even of winter, that it's not the end of the world that here's life is still there because they're evergreen to write the whole thing. And here's the church that now here are Christians, Catholics, you have Christmas trees, and see that's wrong because it was originally a pagan thing. And the church says, mm-hmm, originally it was. But here's what we've done. We've baptized that because you were a pagan once too, and you got baptized.

You got brought into the Lord, you got brought into the faith, brought into the body of Christ. And so there are some aspects of culture that are brought in. And there are actually made signs of Christianity because we've adopted them essentially. Now, at the same time, paragraph 12 was six highlights the fact that at the very last sentence it says, cultural adaptation also requires a conversion of heart, meaning, okay, so it's not just like everything in my culture

I can bring into Christianity. And even where necessary, a breaking with ancestral customs incompatible with the Catholic faith, there are some things that are incompatible with the Catholic faith. Well, it hears a Christmas tree at Evergreen Tree that's brought in. Like, that makes sense because, yep, there's life in the even in the midst of death. There's light in the midst of, you know, darkness of winter. That can be translated pretty easily into a Christian message. But there are some aspects that can't be. I mean, you can think of, man, you can think of, I always think of the places in Southern United States, say Louisiana type area, or even

like places like Haiti, and other countries where voodoo is a thing and there's this weird integration, I say weird, but you know, if that's my perspective, a strange integration of, here's a message of Christianity, and here are the kind of like animist religions of those local places. And the church has to say that actually isn't legit. And same thing, same with other places in South America, Central America, that just these are places I know about, right, where I've visited. And I was like, oh, wow, you can see how they,

here they're wearing a rosary, or they're wearing a crucifix alongside this other, what we'd say, like pagan image. And they're incorporating these two together in a way that the church would say, actually, no, you have to actually issue that, you have to get rid of that, that's not, that is not compatible with the Catholic faith.

And so we need to do that. And the church actually gets to do that, the church gets to tell us this is incompatible with the Catholic faith. And that highlights this when it comes to 12.09. It says, the criterion that assures unity in the midst, I mean, the diversity of literature will traditions is fidelity to the apostolic tradition, right?

So there's that sense of light. It's not just because someone's taste, like, oh, that's different than what I'm used to. That is not the criterion. The criterion is, is this not faithful to the apostolic tradition, in which case, it can't be brought in, can't be incultrated into what we're doing as Catholics. Two last notes here, in 12-5, because this is really important.

So I'm talking about all these things that can be changed. There are some things that can be changed in when it comes to liturgy. So again, we talked about all these different rights yesterday, the Byzantine right, Alexandria and Rite are Coptic, Syriac right, Armenian right, Maronite, Keldian rights, of course, the Latin right, and Brogian, Wright. But there are some things in all those rights that can be changed. Yet there is an immutable part of those rights,

an immutable part that is divinely instituted in which the church is the guardian that cannot be changed. Immutable meaning, you know, unchanging. The church has the duty to protect that immutable part and the church also has the power and occasionally the duty to adapt the part that can be changed. Hopefully that makes some sense because that's a really, really important piece. Now, the last thing I said, I said it doesn't say one more thing, in paragraph 12.07, in the in brief, it says this, moreover, the liturgy itself generates cultures and shapes them.

I think this is worth praying about. The liturgy itself generates cultures and shapes them. You know, culture comes from that word cult. So we recognize that we have culture that arises in so many ways out of religion. In religion is, you know, cult has a bad word on it, but a bad connotation with it. But what we're saying is the good part here. This is this aspect where the way how we how we worship God, how we are faith is meant to actually impact and shape is meant to generate even culture. And this has happened in the past, right?

We have Christendom that existed for many, many years. That was the church that had this, the liturgy, the way the church prayed, the way the church invited people to live, that shaped the culture. And so we're encouraged to let that happen again. Now, we live in a culture, probably, if you're living anywhere near where I'm living, we have a culture that is post-Christian, and yet at the same time, we have an injunction, and that injunction is to bring the gospel

to all nations, we'll bring the gospel to our particular culture, and to let that gospel, to let the way we pray, to let the way we live, generate, and shape the culture in which we find ourselves. And that's part of the continued missionary command from Jesus Christ, given to all of us today. And it happens in many ways through obviously evangelization, proclamation of the gospel, going out, but also happens.

Culture is also generated and shaped by the way we pray, which is one of the reasons why we have to be so faithful to the right to the tradition that we've been given, right? The way to pray that we've been given by the church, and we're faithful to that, and we do it in the most beautiful, most powerful, not just because of arts sake, but because of God's sake, because of the people of God's sake. We do it for that reason. It actually does generate culture. It does actually shape culture. And so that's what we're called to do. Just pray as best we can not only go out and share the gospel, but also the way in which we pray and just praise the Lord and give God glory and pray

for the sanctification and salvation of the world. That also has the ability to generate and shape the culture around us. It takes time though, and so we need to be patient. Because of that, I am praying for you. Please pray for me. On these Father, I kickin' out. Wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.