Identity Theft - Part I

It came as a surprise to me, as it does to many Catholics, when I discovered a few years ago that Ash Wednesday isn’t a holy day of obligation. When I was growing-up, every Catholic went to Mass on Ash Wednesday, even the minority who didn’t practice the Faith regularly. And so for one day you’d see them in the street, on the bus, in school, in stores, at work – everywhere – brethren in the Faith identified by that black smudge on their foreheads.

Of course the purpose of the ashes isn’t to act as a membership badge (for some reason the Monty Python sketch about the “secret Masonic handshake” just popped-into my mind) but to signify a resolution to turn away from sin and the empty pursuit of pleasure. The tradition of ashes as a symbol of repentance predates Christianity, there are many such examples in the Old Testament.

It was quite sad, then, when I got to work yesterday to see how few others wearing ashes. Every year it seems like there are fewer and fewer, and so I felt strangely self-conscious for “advertising” my penitence: “look who thinks he’s holier-than-thou”*

Now before anyone says “judge not lest ye be judged”, that’s not what I’m saying here. Certainly many of my Catholic colleagues were planning on going to Mass in the evening, I’ve been in that situation myself. And one doesn’t need ashes on the skin to be truly penitent in the heart. What I found most lamentable was the reminder, once again, of the total and utter loss of Catholic identity we’ve suffered.

We Catholics have been victims of a serious crime carried-out in the decades following the Second Vatican Council: the term “identity theft” had yet to be coined but that’s exactly what happened to us. One need only read the memoirs of the perpetrators to learn that this is true. Can one really look at the liturgical changes and affirm that “the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them” as mandated by Sacrosanctum Concillium? We have plenty of testimony - direct from the mouths and pens of so many of the architects and participants of this program of destruction - that these changes were motivated by another factor - ecumenism.

And thus so much of what made us recognizably Catholic was jettisoned with unseemly haste in the service of the ecumenical agenda, brought to us by the ‘experts’ who knew better. Those who objected, however mildly, were ridiculed and marginalized by those entrusted with the care of souls. Catholicism, the fullness of Christianity, is a “sensual” religion –the phrase we often hear is “smells-n-bells” which is perhaps a less-provocative way of putting it. The externals and the sacramentals of the Faith were not the creations of the experts or committees of each generation; they developed organically from existing practices and were ratified by the piety of the faithful. A universal Church must appeal to all, but of course the reasoned piety of the intellectual is different from the emotional piety of the peasant and so Holy Mother Church in Her wisdom and experience developed different ways to appeal to each man’s sensibilities using each of man’s senses.

And so we had church buildings which weren’t merely “worship spaces” but “catechisms in stone” – and glass, and plaster, and wood. Stations of the Cross, Mysteries of the Rosary and the lives of the Saints, lit by sunlight filtered through stained-glass by day and flickering candles by night. Thus was the Faith taught to the young and illiterate without words, and so was our attention captured when our minds wandered during Mass. Daily we had early morning low Masses in simple silence and High Masses on high holy days, with heavenly chant and sweet incense and vestments that truly were our “Sunday best. Throughout the year we had processions and novenas and devotions that invited us to participation without demanding involvement; and of course we had disciplines like meatless Fridays and Holy Days of Obligation which gave structure to our practice of the Faith. And ashes, the outward sign of our inward disposition. How natural it all seemed, until the ‘experts’ came to power.

To be continued…

*the “look who thinks he’s holier-than-thou” bit stems from one of my favorite bits of Jewish humor, from a book called “Every Goy’s Guide to Common Jewish Expressions":

Shamus, n. [Yiddish]: A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around the temple, and makes sure everything is in working order. A shamus is at the bottom of the pecking order of synagog functionaries, and there's a joke about that: A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in the middle of a service, Oh, Lord, I am nobody! The cantor, not to be bested, also cries out, Oh, Lord, I am nobody! The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, Oh, Lord, I am nobody! The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, Look who thinks he's nobody!