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Rev. Alan Weber, Director
(813) 988-3727
13005 N 50th St
Tampa, FL 33617-1022
director@catholicusf.org
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The Second Vatican Council, in Sacrosanctum Concilium, paragraph 14 urged individual Catholics, and Catholic communities, to strive for "fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations." This refers preeminently to participation in the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist. The Diocese of St. Petersburg's Living Eucharist Initiative is an opportunity for parishes and individuals to accomplish the Council's goals for Sunday worship.
The idea of "fully conscious, and active participation" is not a new one. Rather, it represents the reclaiming of a set of very old, traditional Catholic values. Our Lenten Faith Series will be dedicated this year to examining the sources of these ancient values.
There will be readings for each week of Lent chosen from ancient sources, beginning with the Christian Scriptures, and continuing with sub-apostolic writers. The purpose of our readings will be to catch a glimpse of the attitudes and practices of the first few generations of believers, beginning with those who heard the Apostles preach.
Each week we will discuss the assigned reading, and identify how the faith and practices of the Apostles has both influenced our experience of the Faith, and stands as the measure of our experience of the Faith. Participants will also receive a brief introduction to the next reading assignment. Group discussions will take place on Sunday mornings after the 10:00 a.m. liturgy, and online below. All Catholics, of all ages, are invited to participate.
The reading for the Fifth Week of Lent (March 29, 2009), is taken fromThe Apostolic Tradition by Hippolytus of Rome. This text was written early in the third century, but contains a record of late second century Roman liturgical and administrative practices. You may read the entire document, but for the purposes of this Lenten Faith Renewal Series, we will focus on Chapter 4. Fr. Alan's reflections will be posted on Monday following our Sunday gathering.
You may post your comments and questions about the readings beginning on each Sunday of Lent, and continuing through the following week.
You can read Bishop Lynch's Pastoral Letter, and get more information about this process of renewal on the Living Eucharist website.
In order to participate in this on-line discussion you must register your name and email address with Fr. Alan. This discussion room will be open only during the weeks of Lent. You do not need to register for the discussion in order to read the posted comments.
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Subject Week One - 1 Corinthians 10 & 11
Date Wed Mar 11 2009 16:58
Author Fr. Alan (director@catholicusf.org)
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Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter Ten and Chapter Eleven During St. Paul’s lifetime the city of Corinth was a raucous boom town. The ancient city of Corinth had been destroyed in 146 BC, and rebuilt by Julius Caesar in 44 BC. As a consequence of its temporary ruin, the city had no hereditary ruling class and very little in the way of traditional city life. Corinthian social life was vivacious and libertine. There were many religious groups in the city. There was at least one active synagogue, along with temples dedicated to Roman, Greek and foreign gods and goddesses. The Corinthian church reflected this ethnic diversity. There were some Jews in the church at Corinth, as well as many people from pagan origins. The many problems that this church faced may well have resulted from their ethnic and cultural diversity; they seem not to have had a firm grasp of Christian ethics. Paul founded the church at Corinth around 51 AD, during his second missionary journey. Shortly after it was founded, the church began to experience serious internal difficulties. Paul learned of these rather quickly, and responded with this First Letter to the Corinthians around 54 AD. Chapters Ten and Eleven, our reading this week, constitute part of Paul’s response to the problems that had crept into the Corinthians’ worship. In the course of his address Paul provides us with the earliest Scriptural reference to the celebration of the Lord’s supper. (1 Cor 11:23-26) Although the Institution Narrative in our Eucharistic Prayers is taken from the Gospels, this narrative by Paul predates the earliest Gospel account by about ten years. The very strange sounding discourse about the hair styles of the Corinthian men and women represents two unrelated issues that Paul lumps together. The reference to men who let their hair grow long is probably a reflection of a practice of some homosexual men who tried to make themselves appear more feminine. When Paul refers to the women he was probably speaking about a practice associated with pagan worship in which women would shave their heads for certain festivals. These were unrelated issues, but Paul lumps them together because both represent behavior that is inappropriate in the worship assembly. The point that Paul makes is about neither sexual orientation nor the dignity of women. Rather, Paul is trying to get the Corinthians to see that Christians cannot adopt uncritically the values of the society in which they live. He went through a similar, and equally convoluted, line of reasoning in Chapter Ten with regard to eating and drinking. When he describes the standard for Christian behavior he refers to the celebration of the Lord’s supper. He says, “Whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.” (1 Cor 11:27) In Paul’s opinion Christians bring to the Lord’s supper the entirety of their lives; the Christian faith is something lived 24/7, not just a few hours or minutes at a time. Paul wanted the Corinthians to see that their manner of life had a profound influence on how they prayed together as a community. As a consequence, they should be careful at all times not to give offence to anyone, or to scandalize anyone (Chapter Ten). They should also be careful about how they interact with one another during worship (Chapter Eleven). He suggests that the Corinthians’ lack of love for one another makes their Eucharist invalid. Corinthian worship consisted of what was called “the love feast.” It was a communal meal held in a private home. The small size of the rooms may have necessitated splitting up the community into distinct groups; this division may have been exacerbated by the Roman custom of separating the various social strata at public events. The wealthy had the leisure to arrive early, and enjoy a sumptuous feast. The poor may have arrived late because of the necessity of working until sunset. Paul says that if they are interested merely in feeding themselves, rather than participating in the Lord’s feast of love, they should just stay at home. Their lack of love makes a mockery of the Lord’s supper. The celebration of this communal meal was understood to be a remembering of Jesus’ death, and the act of remembering made present Jesus’ act of love. This memorial of Jesus’ death makes God’s saving love present in the world; it is an act whereby the church completes the mission given by Jesus. There are some important similarities between our celebration of the Eucharist and the ancient practice of the love feast; there are also some significant differences. Paul’s notion that the Lord’s supper is a memorial that makes present the saving love of God is precisely what we mean when we talk about the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. We still use the same language of “memorial;” it can be seen in our Eucharistic Prayers. The elements of the meal are also the same today as they were just twenty years after Jesus’ death. Paul identifies the bread and the wine as both the proclamation of the Lord’s saving death (verse 26), and as the community’s personal experience of the Lord’s body and blood (verse 27). The differences between the ancient celebration of the Lord’s supper and ours are both very obvious and worth noting for how they might help us understand better what we do at Sunday Mass. The apostolic church’s practice was to convene a communal meal at which everyone shared a supper. During that supper, bread and wine were blessed and shared as a memorial of the Lord’s death. By contemporary standards, there was very little ritual involved; the practice was essentially a pot-luck supper. This sharing of a communal meal was considered to be the appropriate place to celebrate the Eucharist because the death of Jesus was understood to be God’s act of saving a people (rather than individuals). Our contemporary celebration of Eucharist is very private, and even anti-social, by comparison. One of the ancient values that the liturgical reforms of Vatican II wanted to recapture was this sense of an intimate community life shared by the apostolic church. Paul is emphatic when he warns the Corinthians that their private behavior has an effect on the whole community and an influence on the whole world. The twentieth century’s liturgical reforms have made a tremendous positive impact on our Sunday celebration, but there is still much that needs to be renewed. One of the most important aspects of the Lord’s supper for the first generation of believers was the time that they spent together as a community. We need to make this a priority, too. |
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Proclaiming the Gospel of Hope
