The family and the State, Pius XI

"[T]he family is more sacred than the State and that men are begotten not for the earth and for time, but for Heaven and eternity."

- Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii

The Hokey Cokey

... or Hokey Pokey, as it's known elsewhere.

(This post is apropos nothing topical, just something I've long pondered on.)

When I was young, my dad told me the Hokey Cokey mocked the Mass. The words Hokey Cokey being based on "Hoc est enim Corpus Meum" ("This is My Body"). That seems to be a well known theory, although it has been denied (for example, here).

It might all be an urban legend, but...

When I started attending Traditional Latin Masses half my life (so far) ago, it started making sense.

You put your right hand in... out, shake it all about.
- Perhaps a parody of the priest making the sign of the cross over the host and chalice at the Offertory.

You do the Hokey Cokey
- As per the famous theory, as mentioned already, about it being a parody of "Hoc est emim Corpus Meum."

And you turn around
- Priest turns to congregation and says "Dominus vobiscum."

Knees bend
- Genuflection.

Arms stretch
- Elevation.

Rah rah rah!
- Bells rung thrice.

Can those similarities really have come about just by accident?

Things prophets haven't said

Traditionalist (and I number myself among them) often quote this:

We are what you once were.
We believe what you once believed.
We worship as you once worshipped.
If you were right then, we are right now.
If we are wrong now, you were wrong then.

But is it all that persuasive really?

There can't be many people who have difficulty conceding that they used to be wrong but that they're right now. If I were a modernist, and a traditionalist used that motto in a discussion with me, I'd probably respond, "Yes, I was wrong then. Now, I've seen the light!"

What might be a more persuasive argument?

Perhaps the fact that we have been warned to beware of novelties, in scripture for a start:

For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables... - 2 Timothy 4:3-4

Notice the chronology. Truth first, being abandoned in favour of error. Not the other way round. 

In fact, I don't think I've ever seen any prediction that says that one day the Church will start getting things right after having been wrong for so long. Not that anyone has to believe in private revelations, but when none of them predicts that things are just going to keep getting better in the Church, it should make one think.

These days, I'm more interested in what prophecies don't say than what they do. Things like, "There will be a great Council, that will open the Church up to the influence of the world, and there will be a new springtime!" And, "The Church's liturgy will undergo immense improvements, allowing more participation by the people, and more involvement of women, who have been neglected for so long." Not forgetting, "Church buildings will be greatly improved by the removal of altar rails, statues, and the relocation of tabernacles to a less central position."

So on the one hand, we've had warnings that things will become very bad (a diabolical disorientation, as Sr Lucy put it), and on the other we've had no predictions that things will get better (except after a chastisement of some kind). Our Lady's Immaculate Heart will triumph eventually, but meanwhile there will be trouble.

Whose preference?

The subject of the liturgy is often reduced to being a mere matter of preference, but isn't how we worship more significant than that?

One might prefer burger and fries to salad, but does that make it superior?
One could prefer the Beatles to Beethoven, while still acknowledging the superiority of the latter.

So, while one may "prefer" the New Mass or the Traditional Mass, which one is superior?

This post from last year might provide a clue.

Pomp need not come into it though. I maintain that a Traditional Mass, offered in the humblest of surroundings, without music, is still superior to a reverent New Mass in a cathedral.

(The Divine Liturgy is also superior. I often think of detergent adverts:
We washed the Latin Rite in new improved Vatican II, but we used the original formula on the 
Eastern Rites. Let's see how they turned out!)

The changes matter. They matter to those who protest against them, and they matter to those who introduced them, otherwise they wouldn't have introduced them, imposing the new and suppressing the old.

The only preference which counts is God's preference. He "preferred" Abel's sacrifice to Cain's.

C S Lewis on Divine Goodness

... What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, "What does it matter so long as they are contented?" We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven--a senile benevolence who, as they say, "liked to see young people enjoying themselves" and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "a good time was had by all". Not many people, I admit, would formulate a theology in precisely those terms: but a conception not very different lurks at the back of many minds. I do not claim to be an exception: I should very much like to live in a universe which was governed on such lines. But since it is abundantly clear that I don't, and since I have reason to believe, nevertheless, that, God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs correction.

The Problem of Pain

Abolishing suffering and disease

It would be wrong to wish someone suffering. (Although, maybe a little suffering might do some people good.) But might it be worse to desire a world (outside of Heaven) without suffering and disease? Such a world would be impossible anyway. It would be a tyranny with special sufferings of its own.

Eugenics desires to eliminate disease and suffering, or rather people who will suffer from disease. Heaven works because everyone in it is perfect. While we are here on earth, we have to contend with disease and suffering.

Imagine a world where suffering has been abolished. Where most people undergo (or have their offspring undergo) genetic treatments that will eliminate disability (or any offspring with disabilities). But, there will be some people who will resist such practices. They will have children naturally and accept any disabled babies.

They will be in a minority. They will suffer persecution in various forms. A society which thinks it has eliminated disease and disability will not welcome these inconvenient families who accept such suffering. These people who refuse to  consent to unethical and sinful procedures will be penalised. There will be a culture of ostracising imperfect people. Responsible parents will have made sure they produced healthy children. Irresponsible parents will show scant regard for the common good, by tolerating unhealthy children. There won't be a culture of compassion, because people will be expected not to need any. But there will always be a few spoiling it for everyone else!.

The word "compassion" means "suffer with". A world without suffering would be a world without compassion.

Are we nearly there yet?

Pope Benedict XV on peace

To the heads of the belligerent peoples.

From the beginning of our Pontificate, amidst the horrors of the terrible war unleashed upon Europe, We have kept before Our attention three things above all: to preserve complete impartiality in relation to all the belligerents, as is appropriate to him who is the common father and who loves all his children with an equal affection; to endeavour constantly to do to all the most possible good, without personal exceptions and without national or religious distinctions, a duty which the universal law of charity, as well as the supreme spiritual charge entrusted to Us by Christ, dictates to Us; finally, as Our peace-making mission equally demands, to leave nothing undone within Our power, which could assist in hastening the end of this calamity, by trying to lead the peoples and their heads to more moderate frames of mind and to the calm deliberations of peace, of a "just and lasting" peace.

Whoever has followed Our work during the three unhappy years which have just elapsed, has been able to recognize with ease that if We have always remained faithful to Our resolution of absolute impartiality and to Our practical policy of welldoing, We have never ceased to urge the belligerent peoples and Governments to become brothers once more, even although publicity has not been given to all which We have done to attain this most noble end.

Towards the end of the first year of war, We addressed to the conflicting nations the most lively exhortations, and in addition We indicated the way to follow in order to arrive at a lasting and honourable peace for all. Unhappily, Our appeal was not heeded; and the war continued bitterly for two more years, with all its horrors; it even became more cruel and spread over land and sea, even in the air; desolation and death were seen to fall upon defenceless cities, peaceful villages and their innocent populations. And at the present moment no one can imagine how the sufferings of all may increase and become more intense, if further months or, still worse, further years are added to these bloodstained three years. Will the civilized world then become nothing but a field of death? And will Europe, so glorious and so flourishing before, rush, as if driven on by a universal folly, to the abyss and be the agent of her own suicide?

In so agonizing a situation, in face of so great a danger, We who have no special political aim, who pay no attention to the suggestions of the interests of either of the belligerent groups, but are moved only by the feeling of our lofty duty as common Father of the faithful and by the solicitations of our children who beg for our intervention and Our peace-making word, We raise anew a cry for peace and We renew an urgent appeal to those who hold in their hands the destinies of nations. But so as not to confine Ourselves any longer to general terms, as circumstances have advised us in the past, we now wish to descend to more concrete and practical propositions, and to invite the Governments of the belligerent peoples to reach agreement on the following points, which seem to be the basis of a just and lasting peace, leaving to them the task of making them more precise and of completing them.

First of all, the fundamental point should be that for the material force of arms should be substituted the moral force of law; hence a just agreement by all for the simultaneous and reciprocal reduction of armaments, according to rules and guarantees to be established to the degree necessary and sufficient for the maintenance of public order in each State; then, instead of armies, the institution of arbitration, with its lofty peace-making function, according to the standards to be agreed upon and with sanctions to be decided against the State which might refuse to submit international questions to arbitration or to accept its decisions.

Once the supremacy of law has been established, let every obstacle to the ways of communication between the peoples be removed, by ensuring through rules to be fixed in similar fashion, the true freedom and common use of the seas. This would, on the one hand, remove many reasons for conflict and, on the other, would open new sources of prosperity and progress to all.

With regard to reparations for damage and to the expenses of the war, We see no way of settling the question other than by laying down as a general principle, a complete and reciprocal condonation, justified by the immense benefits to be drawn from disarmament, and all the more because one could not understand the continuation of such slaughter solely for reasons of an economic nature. If, however, in certain cases there exist special reasons, let them be pondered with justice and equity.

But pacifying agreements, with the immense advantages flowing from them, are not possible without the reciprocal restitution of territories actually occupied. In consequence, on the part of Germany, there should be total evacuation of Belgium, with a guarantee of its full political, military and economic independence vis-à-vis any Power whatsoever; similarly the evacuation of French territory. On the side of the other belligerent parties, there should be a corresponding restitution of the German colonies.

With regard to territorial questions, such as those disputed between Italy and Austria, and between Germany and France, there is ground for hope that in consideration of the immense advantages of a lasting peace with disarmament, the conflicting parties will examine them in a conciliatory frame of mind, taking into account, so far as it is just and practicable, as We have said previously, the aspirations of the peoples and co-ordinating, according to circumstances, particular interests with the general good of the great human society.

The same spirit of equity and justice should direct the examination of other territorial and political questions, notably those relating to Armenia, the Balkan States and the territories composing the ancient Kingdom of Poland, for which especially its noble historical traditions and the sufferings which it has undergone, particularly during the present war, ought rightly to enlist the sympathies of the nations.

Such are the principal foundations upon which We believe the future reorganization of peoples should rest. They are of a kind which would make impossible the recurrence of such conflicts and would pave the way for a solution of the economic question, so important for the future and the material welfare of all the belligerent States. Thus, in presenting them all to You who preside at this tragic hour over the destinies of the belligerent nations, We are animated by a sweet hope, that of seeing them accepted and thus of seeing the earliest possible end to the fearful struggle which has the ever-increasing appearance of a useless massacre. Everybody recognizes, furthermore, that on both sides the honour of arms has been satisfied. Give attention, then, to Our entreaty, accept the paternal invitation which We address to You in the name of the Divine Redeemer, Prince of Peace. Reflect on your very grave responsibility before God and before men; on your decisions depend the rest and joy of countless families, the life of thousands of young people, in short, the happiness of the peoples, whose wellbeing it is your overriding duty to procure. May the Lord inspire you with decisions agreeable to His Most Holy Will. May Heaven bring it about that, by earning the applause of your contemporaries, You will also gain for yourselves the beautiful name of peacemakers among future generations.

As for Us, closely united in prayer and penitence to all faithful souls who sigh for peace, We implore for You from the Divine Spirit light and counsel.

From the Vatican, August 1, 1917 Benedictus, PP. XV