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“I felt often that Priests are more like Cain than Abel”—Dorothy Day in The Long Loneliness
Mary, Ever-Virgin and Blessed Joseph her husband, the priest prayed. What a funny line, I thought. But virgin just means a woman who no man has ever owned. It occurred to me, in that Eucharistic Prayer, that virgin is much less a sexual category in the context in which it is written than it is about ownership. When the Liturgical Calendar celebrates Clare and Lucy as virgins, it is less a commentary on their sexual life than it is their freedom toward God.
In it’s harshest interpretive light, what “virgin” is referring to is that a woman under patriarchy is owned by her husband, and this woman was owned by no man. In perhaps a more nuanced interpretation, a wife, unlike a virgin, owes an earthly spouse her allegiance, so the woman’s duty might be divided between the husband and God. In an even kinder interpretation, the husband has perhaps a claim on her time and has shaped the availability of her affection, or attention, that might otherwise be spent for God. And, to be a virgin means to have no such split allegiance.
In the context of the Eucharistic prayer, “virgin” simply means “woman who belongs to herself.” Mary does indeed belong to herself, always has, and that means, the underlying logic seems to suggest, that she has always belonged fully and completely to God.
And so talk of virgins and martyrs, it seems, is trying to express something a lot more like what Emmanuel Mounier means by a person than the virginal ideal 1990s chastity talks fixated on. To be a virgin is to be a person.
St Anthony Claret, Ignatius of Loyola, John Chyrsostom were all kicked out of various religious orders because of their sensitive stomachs. Hot girls with IBS, these are your great cloud of witnesses.
That Eucharistic prayer was particularly fruitful, as I wondered if what was going on around me could properly be called a liturgy. A liturgy is the work of the people, a public action. Does everyone here, I thought, know that the prayers the priest is reciting are our own prayers? Do we say them and believe them? Are we fully and actively participating, as called for by the Church, in our own liturgy, our own public action.
Studies indicate that a parish’s music and its pastor’s homily are the parts of Mass that churchgoers remember the most. So it would make sense why Pope Francis’ pleas for shorter homilies are ignored: why cut down on the thing that most people are coming to Mass for?
But the homily is perhaps one of the least important parts of the Mass—and, with the state of preaching in the United States, increasingly less important—it is much more important to be present and praying and actively participating in the Eucharistic Prayer than sitting and listening to the homily. To underscore the entire Body of Christ’s responsibility for the Eucharistic Prayer, the parish I attended in North Carolina would invite the entire church to stand with the priest, mirroring his movements. This meant the congregation stood during the entire Eucharistic liturgy—from the Preface, through the Sanctus, during the Consecration, and through each person’s reception of communion—only sitting down when the priest paused for a silent prayer after the final chalice was cleaned and put away.
I always grew up learning that to kneel during the Eucharistic Liturgy was a sign of reverence and to stand was too casual a pose for such a solemn moment. What made this particular congregation’s movement extraordinary was its unity—what a rare sight!—in which all the congregation was invited to move as one. And they took the time to catechize the congregation: they explained the theological significance of what they were doing and why.
Perhaps our liturgies would become more engrained in our public life, and become more central to our imaginations, our daily lives, our work, our living, our politics, our neighborhoods and communities if, during the Eucharistic Prayer, we stood with the priest and made these prayers, together. Truly becoming what we receive: Christ’s body, offering, receiving, loving as one.
Sweet Unrest in the Streets
I joined Bo at Iowa Catholic Radio for another segment on religion and tech. Very fun.
I wrote about the Lenten practice of the Stations of the Cross (and how they’re ~~not always my favorite~~ why do they so frequently make the greatest mystery of our faith as boring as sin?) for Catholic Artist Connection’s Lenten Reflection Series.