Saints About The Altar

Homily for All Saints Day, but also a reflection on why there were saint statues imbedded in high altars. Hint: it's not just to make them pretty. 

All Saints 2017

Where are the Saints at Mass?

Today is All Saints Day

How do the saints play into what we do at Mass?

A month ago I was talking at the grade school Mass

I think it was the feast of the Guardian Angels 

Where are your Angels at Mass?

In the pew, with you, obviously. 

But also very attentive to what going on up here 

This is what they live for 

Other angels—non-guardian angels—around altar

If you need more help paying attention you can recruit an extra angel from up here 

So we focused on: Help you you focus and pay attention

Angels' real job = worship 

All gathered here to worship 

Where are the Saints? 

They're here too 

Definition of a saint is "One who we know is in heaven"

What is heaven? 

Heaven is to be with Jesus

So when Jesus is present in church, saints present too. 

Like angels, the saints worship 

Multiple times in book of Revelation, like we just heard in the first reading, we're told that the elders—who represent the saints of the old and new testaments—and the martyrs, the ones we just heard about with white robes and palm branches, fall down before the throne of God and worship. 

That's part of why we have statues of saints in the sanctuary. 

Notice the connection of the words: Saint in the French version of sanctus or sancta which is the Latin for a holy person, a person in heaven, a "saint". 

So the sancti, the saints, belong in the sanctuary 

Sanctuary = the holy place

But, even as statues, they belong there not just as decoration. 

A month ago we started praying all facing the same direction

And each week in the bulletin I've had a little blurb reflecting more than I could in the homily

This last Sunday, in the bulletin, I talked about in some churches the old high altar can become just a pretty backdrop (see #4)

Part of that has to do with our posture of worship

But the other thing is that people now, and maybe even even 50 years ago, didn't understand what the old high altar and the big altarpiece with saints in it, were about. 

The towering altarpiece, or reredos, with its niches, wasn't about a way to show off your statues or make a pretty backdrop. 

The vertical wall of the altarpiece was meant to represent heaven itself

That's why it went up so high, and pointed upwards. 

That's why saints were built into it 

They are the Saints *in heaven*

Often you had your patrons

Look at our old pictures

Our St. Wenceslaus was top center, looking down on his parish 

Our reredos used to have five 

Weston, still has theirs. Three. 

Saints in heaven looking down. 

Vertical was image of heaven. 

Horizontal, leading up to it, was the earthly

So as the earthly approached the heavenly, the steps started to climb up 

Hence the sanctuary, "the holy place" is where earth climbs toward heaven. 

Image: God the Father, up top

Saints and angels, in a sense, up in the air, surrounding

And then where heaven and earth meet: you would have a large crucifix, dead center

and then right in front of that, on the horizontal altar top, you had the sacrifice of the Mass presented,

The bread and wine changed into Jesus' body and blood offered up for us, 

and all of us worshipping in that direction. 

So it pulled together this great image: 

we all know the Mass is where heaven meets earth

We all know that that is supposed to be moment we enter into heavenly worship,

And that's what it did: it brought that together. 

So that visually, with your own eyes, you saw it all click together. 

Mass is not just us on earth saying: "God please do stuff for us"

No, we proclaim that God himself has come down to earth. 

And Jesus, God made man, is pulling us up to heaven,

So where he is, all the angels are gathered, 

Where he is all the saints are gathered,

And all together they are worshiping 

and we're like: We get to be a part of this. 

We get to come in to that.

And when we approach the sanctuary then to receive communion, we get to receive that gift of "Heaven kissing earth"

We're receiving that gift of God who has come down to us and says "I want to give you my very self"

He's brought us up to the edge of heaven,

And brought heaven down to our very lips

It's this incredible image

So this is what we get to celebrate every day of the year

All Saints day emphasizes it:

"Yeah, don't forget you have this cloud of witnesses" 

But every single day of the year we have that available to us. 

We always say in the "Confiteor" that we want "all the angels and saints to pray for me to the lord our god" for our sins to be forgiven 

And we pray throughout the EP that we may be made part of the family of saints and angels to get to be with them in heaven

...And yet also, here we are on earth, already foretasting that. 

So let's not let this be the one day out of the year we think about this. 

Spend the 364 days recognizing that the saints and angels are always worshipping and they are wanting to share their daily, constant, eternal worship with us—and when we come to Mass we get to dive into it too. 

Follow Up Thoughts on Ad Orientem, Part 1

In the original homily where I introduced ad orientem at St. Wenceslaus I ended by saying I could have gone on for another ten minutes, but for time's sake I would share those ideas in different ways. And then with certain topics, like the question of sanctuary restoration, I said that I would save that and explain more in the bulletin. 

So, in each of the bulletins since October 1st I have put in a little blurb, explaining more about ad orientem, sharing an anecdote from other places that have had it, or presenting things I had to skip in the homily. So today I am bundling the first four of these blurbs here for those who don't have a stack of St. Wenceslaus bulletins at home.

Blurbs 5-8 found here and 9-10 found here.

I. Last weekend I explained that for at least the next year, St. Wenceslaus would be celebrating Mass ad orientem, that is, with the priest and the people united, facing the same direction. If you missed that homily, or want to revisit it, visit the parish website. We have placed the text and the audio near the top. Over the coming weeks I am going to share here some of the insights that didn’t make the homily, but for the core reasoning, you’ll need to hear the homily itself.

A hard decision I had to make was whether to catechize about “AO” for weeks ahead of time, or just preach the one homily and then start at that very Mass. I was keenly aware that many of the changes in the ‘60s and ‘70s were done with minimal pre-teaching. But as some students noted, this was a far smaller change than the translation changes we had in 2011. So I decided it was better not to break things up and risk people having too much time to overthink it, talk to anyone else, or go hide in another parish. Instead, everyone heard the reasoning and then two minutes later we were all praying, facing God the Father together. So far almost every response has been positive, especially among young people. Thank you for walking alongside me in this pilgrimage!

II. In the homily introducing ad orientem worship, I said that I think praying this way will make us better prayers (pray-ers). Another thing it should do is free us from mixing up what parts are conversation with God and what parts are conversation with the priest. These ideas overlap in a conversation a priest in our diocese had with a woman in his parish after they started ad orientem. She said "Father, I feel free now. When you looked at us the whole Mass, I felt I needed to look back, as a courtesy and to show I'm listening. Now, in the parts where we are talking to God, I can close my eyes, I can look down. I don't feel I always have to look at you. I can pray naturally."

This makes sense to me. Most faithful Catholics want to show they are attentive, focused, listening participants. But for many that means sacrificing what might be a more natural posture and style of prayer because they feel they need to show the priest (and others) "I'm listening!" AO frees us to pray, without worrying about signaling the priest our attention.

III. A line commonly heard when discussing Mass ad orientem (or when discussing the pre-1965 “Traditional Latin Mass”) is that “Father had his back to us.” There is a lot more in that line than I can go into here, but I have done some research on this and, interestingly, that complaint is basically nowhere to be found in writings in 1950 or 1960. It seems to only appear after the priest was encouraged to face the people (1965-70), and is used by liturgists and catechists to open the people up to the change, e.g. “Isn’t this nice? Father used to have his back to you, but now he’s looking at you.” A priest in Lincoln a couple years ago turned the celebrant and server chairs 90°, from facing the people to facing inward, much like our chairs. A woman said, “Father, I’m upset because I can’t see your face anymore.” The priest replied, “Then, sadly, we were doing it wrong.” His point, and it applies to the Introductory Rites and the Eucharistic Prayer alike, was that Mass has never been about the celebrant, and should never be about him or his connection to the people. I understand how there was appeal in being told “Father won’t have his back to us any more,” but I don’t think the liturgists who first said it realized what clarity they actually already possessed and what confusion they were beginning. 

IV. In the homily when I introduced ad orientem I asked a question, “Does this have anything to do with the building campaign/sanctuary renovation?” and my answer was “No… and a tiny yes.” That “yes” is: We should take some time with ad orientem before we have to decide about what kind of renovation we want.

I’ve talked to several priests throughout the country who restored sanctuaries and put beautiful, tall altarpieces in again. When asked if those additions changed much in the parish they all said some version of “Well, we get more weddings requests and more pictures on Christmas.”

I call this the “backdrop effect”, and we don’t want it. We don’t want to spend $50,000 on a pretty backdrop with no appreciable change in how we pray and think. To me, the backdrop effect seems sensible in Mass facing the people. When the priest is facing the people, the mental path goes between him and the people, and so the altarpiece is background. But when we are facing the same direction, the mental path goes from the people, through the priest, and on up and in. When we say Mass ad orientem, the sanctuary furnishings are organically more of a part of the worship.

"At Her Centre, Her Truest Children Dwell"

On Sunday night, October 22, 2017, Bethlehem Lutheran and St. Wenceslaus held a joint prayer service in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. I thank Pastor Robert Hayden for inviting our parish to his church to share in this joint moment of honesty, prayer, and reconciliation. 

I'm told that there may be video of the whole event, and if it makes it to the Web I will link it here. In the meantime, here is the audio of my half of the double sermon. I know there are at least two pretty obvious speaking errors; let your mind provide the correct words via context. Be merciful; I had the flu and my notes were scanty.

The Secret Twist in "Render Unto Caesar"

If you've always taken "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's" as either 1) a cool debate trick used by Jesus to flummox his adversaries or 2) a breaking of the world into temporal and spiritual spheres, then you might want to listen to this and reflect what is covered in "render unto God what is God's."

The transcript today is just my notes. Sorry, I have the flu. 

p. 65

Pretty famous: render unto Caesar 

recent Books: Archbishop Chaput

Monday of Holy Week

Already come in on Palm Sunday, Hosanna to Son of David, cleansed Temple

Throw down with Pharisee and Sadducees 

Threatening parables: vineyard, wedding feast

Then their questions: know his teaching and personality, so try to make hypotheticals where it seems he either has to go against the Torah or go against his previous statements

Or even go against the civil roman authorities 

Taxes, resurrection, greatest commandment, woman caught in adultery

Odd set up: Herodians

Politically shifty, compromise 

Pharisees: allied more with zealots

Hate Herod, hate Rome, nothing but Jewish national rule 

Major threat if together

Census tax:

Either against Jewish self rule 

Or against rome and Caesar 

Remember the charge: insurrection 

Pilate would've let go except 

Smarmy <read>

Greasy 

Butter him up and give one or other answer, both of which they think will condemn him

Show me the coin

Genius: like greatest command, woman, by what authority

Skips over their supposed dilemma: What about this?

What does this have to do with anything

Give answer: Return to Caesar 

Everyone marvels

Take for granted this was brilliant

But lots more to it than this

Background: 

Coin has an image

King, emperor, local God

Icon

But that word, icon, is what the first commandment says you cannot have: "you shall have no graven images" 

Why are there moneychangers in the temple?

Why are there tables for Jesus to flip over the day before?

It's not a question of changing Roman coins into Jewish coins because of the exchange rate, it's because all coins come in with images graven in them

Often times the kings themselves said they were gods of some sort

You can't go and buy a turtledove or a goat to sacrifice with coins with graven images

Everybody comes into Jerusalem with a pocketful of idolatry 

And so they have to go to the money changers and trade their Caesar coins for —aniconic, non-iconic coins— temple shekels because God has no icons, no image

So with this as background, Jesus's words don't make sense:

Give to Caesar what's caesars, literally what bears his image, his coin. 

But give to God what is God's what bears his image? But what bears his image? Nothing does! 

But something does bear God's image, doesn't it?

It's not a coin

Not a statue or temple

Think back to Genesis 1

What is the one thing that bears God's image? 

It's you.

So when J says give to Caesar what is Caesar's, give him what has his image—this stupid coin

Then he's saying give to God what bears his image—you 

Give him your whole self

So it's not just that Jesus slip through their trap,

But is making a huge point

I don't care much what you do with your money: Caesar, king of Persia, or dump in a well

Give to God what looks like God

You

Give him your whole life

Your time 

Your breath

Your exertion 

Later in this chapter they'll ask him what is the greatest commandment 

He'll answer: love the lord

SAME THING: Render to God what bears God'a image. 

So it's not just a nifty rhetorical move or a cool debate counterattack that saves him from the Roman but also doesn't tick off the Jewish nationalists, 

He has gone deeper,

Like he does with the question of forgiveness with the woman caught in adultery

He's gone deeper and said:

The material stuff, the worldly stuff, the civic stuff is secondary to the question of where are our hearts, where are our lives, going?

A year ago as we prepared for our stewardship renewal I reflected on this when I preached on the idea that: 

"Nothing I have is mine. Not my breath. Not my thoughts. Not my talents. Not even my dreams and wishes."

Nothing is my own. Everything comes from God. 

So the real message of today's gospel isn't that Jesus is a first-rate debate champion, but that he wants us to recognize that everything we are and we have is God's, and that as we return our taxes to Caesar, we need to return ourselves to the Lord.