A System Perfectly Designed to Produce a Priestly Crisis

Did the post-Conciliar Church set up a system of priestly formation that was destined to fail? The author, Director of Clergy Support for the Diocese of Fall River, thinks so.

From Crisis

By Matt Robinson, STM, MSc, MBA

The alarming crisis in the priesthood is less a reflection upon individual priests, and much more a condemnation of the redesigned formation of priests following Vatican II.

The priesthood is in a state of crisis. 

That’s not a criticism of anyone. There are faithful people at every level (clergy and laity alike) laboring in the Church, showing up day after day and trying to get the job done. Praise God for that. 

But the priesthood is in a state of crisis, a claim buttressed by extensive data and evidence on the spiritual, mental, physical, and ministerial welfare of our priests. So grave is this problem that many are wondering why so many men are leaving the priesthood. 

As a Church, we really need to thoroughly, prayerfully, and systematically address this issue—because as Vatican II’s Decree on Priestly Training Optatam Totius says, “The desired renewal of the whole Church depends to a great extent on the ministry of its priests.” We’re all talking about evangelization, but it seems to me that we are neglecting how a strong and holy presbyterate is a core driver of the renewal that we desire. Might the renewal of the priesthood be the quickest way to bring about a renewal in the Church? 

It’s important to say again that analyzing the crisis in the priesthood must be without casting blame (i.e., it’s the bishops’ fault, it’s the priests’ fault, it’s the broken families’ fault, etc.) and without defensiveness. That’s all just super unhelpful and counterproductive to being solution-focused. 

With that said, why is there a crisis in the priesthood? 

This hasn’t happened by chance. Every system is perfectly designed to get the results that it gets. So the “results” we’re getting—a crisis in the priesthood—are the result of the current Church system.  

What is that system? 

I’ve been really blessed to be able to work with priests across the country, and, in my experience, the system looks something like this. 

Obviously, it starts long before day one of priestly ministry. It starts in seminary formation. 

Certainly, seminaries have come a long way. But it still appears that the seminary system is fundamentally designed to produce smart priests rather than priests who are psychologically sturdy, emotionally healthy, spiritually alive, and pastorally mature spiritual fathers. 

This is not an indictment of strong intellectual formation, but we know from research that the higher someone’s IQ, the more important emotional and social competence training becomes. Given that priests are generally men of high IQ, the need for training in emotional and social competence becomes critical. 

After ordination, we’re not seeing priests struggle intellectually (there are no more heretics); we’re seeing priests struggle mightily with the psychological skills that one needs to navigate ministry and be psychologically sturdy—assertiveness, emotional management, decision-making, stress regulation, optimism, flexibility, etc. 

This has spiritual effects, too. Since grace builds upon nature as a vine grows upon a lattice, this lack of human formation affects the priest’s spiritual life and relationship with God. We are integrated persons: mind, body, and spirit. 

The seminary system also seems to be inadvertently institutionalizing seminarians. What I mean by that is that the level of support the seminary provides seminarians, while understandable, has the adverse effect of teaching seminarians to rely on the Church system rather than on God and their own abilities. That’s institutionalization. Personal resilience is not being developed due to a sort of system-wide “helicopter parenting.” So when the young priest enters the priesthood and all those institutional supports are immediately removed, he’s left in a quasi-crisis on the road to full-blown crisis. 

The lack of intentional training in the skills needed for psychospiritual sturdiness, along with a form of institutionalization, can and does result in a newly minted young priest who has spent eight years in formation feeling totally unprepared and inadequate for the realities of modern priesthood.

At this point, the newly ordained priest is turned over to the care of the diocese. How does that system work? 

In most dioceses, because the number of parishes hasn’t been adequately reduced, the only option is to assign the priest to a parish that can afford him. Sometimes that works because that parish also happens to have a great pastor; but other times, when the first pastor and parish are incapable of mentoring a young priest, it turns into a nightmare. The young priest is baptized into a type of ministry characterized by cynicism and mediocrity. He’s trained to think that the actual model of diocesan priesthood is about being an operations and activities director. 

But how about the priesthood modeled by St. John Vianney? The fatherhood model characterized by radical self-sacrifice for the spiritual welfare of those entrusted to me that I learned about in the seminary? No, curb your enthusiasm, kid; the priesthood is really about managing buildings, not rocking the ship, being a cog in the machine, keeping the diocese happy, and then being reassigned and doing it all over again. 

Speaking of being reassigned—once again, because there are too many parishes and no other apparent options—this young priest, already sufficiently disillusioned and lonely, is reassigned to a leadership role. In that leadership role, he quickly comes face-to-face with a parish culture where everyone has learned to do things themselves, perhaps because priests transfer in and out so often or because the previous pastor (to be as charitable as possible) took a laissez-faire leadership approach. This newly cemented territorialism (which emerged as a sort of organizational “survival” mechanism) among staff, volunteers, and parishioners further drives him into despair. The priest’s meaningful attempts at change and innovation are met with strong criticism—and, unfortunately, he’s never learned to manage criticism without experiencing it as a debilitating referendum on his worth as a person and as a priest. 

While all this is happening, the priest “submarines” under detection—just like he did in the seminary—because there is so much ecclesial distrust that he thinks asking for help is the end of his priesthood or, at a minimum, carries the social cost of others knowing that he’s not perfect. In his mind, those costs are too great. He needs to figure it out himself; after all, “my bishop doesn’t actually care about me anyway.” 

Since his struggles haven’t been addressed early enough, this young priest now experiences a mental health crisis, engagement in sinful escapism behavior, or some combination of both. Sadly, he begins questioning his vocation, looking over his shoulder at his secular friends with families and careers and wondering: Did I make the right choice? 

This is how it happens. 

While I know I’ve gotten a bit into the weeds here, in my experience, young priests all over the country have experienced a Church system that looks like this. 

Every system is perfectly designed to get the results that it gets. We’re getting the results that our system is designed to produce. We should stop being surprised. 

So, what’s the solution? 

Before getting into that, one disclaimer is in order. This analysis of the Church system is not a reason for priests to feel like victims. That’s a good way to absolve oneself from personal responsibility. In reality, despite organizational shortcomings, priests are still called to do the best they can in a given context through prayer, hard work, and the pursuit of ministerial excellence, no matter the cost or environment. Period. 

In reality, a successful priest occurs at the intersection of organizational support and individual effort. Both are required. 

With that in mind, the solution sounds like this: form the man, reform the system. 

Forming the man means focusing all efforts on helping priests develop as fathers who are psychologically sturdy, emotionally healthy, spiritually alive, and pastorally mature—thinkers with a heart, as it were. 

Forming the man means focusing all efforts on helping priests develop as fathers who are psychologically sturdy, emotionally healthy, spiritually alive, and pastorally mature…Tweet This

Reforming the system starts by decision-makers in the Church asking themselves one question: How do we create the internal and external conditions that priests need to perform at their best? The answer to this question literally has salvific consequences and will likely require a massive conversion at the institutional level.

Institutional conversion? Yes, institutional conversion. When institutional conversion meets personal conversion, we’ll turn the crisis in the priesthood around. 

One healthy and holy priest changes everything. Helping priests to be all that they can be is the greatest evangelization initiative. St. John Vianney took a dying parish and turned it into one overflowing with tens of thousands of parishioners. That’s the power of the priesthood. Thank God for the gift of the priesthood. 

As an organization, we just have to ask ourselves: Are we setting up conditions that make that reality easier or harder to attain?

Is the World a Stage?

Mr Pearce rephrases Shakespeare's statement as a question: Is all the world a stage, and all the men and women merely players? As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII

FromThe Imaginative Conservative

By Joseph Pearce

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

                                    As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII

Is the world a stage? And are all of us merely players acting out a part or, as Jacques suggests in As You Like It, many parts? And if we are playing a part on the world’s stage, is there any point or purpose to the part we’re playing? If life’s a play and we’re all playing, is there any meaning behind all the play acting? Does life have meaning and purpose or should we agree with the cynical judgment of the psychopathic serial killer, Macbeth:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

It does appear that the melancholy Jacques is tempted to agree with the murderous Macbeth, suggesting in the rest of his famous monologue that life is meaningless, that it is merely much ado about nothing. He summarizes each of the seven acts that constitute the ages of man, from his infancy till his ultimate decrepitude and death:

Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

According to Jacques, we take our final bow without everything, i.e. with nothing, leaving the stage at play’s end destined for “mere oblivion”.

Although it is easy to distance Shakespeare from the words of the psychotic and suicidal Macbeth, whose dark philosophy matches his dark deeds, it is more difficult to separate him from the seriously thoughtful Jacques.

In order to understand Shakespeare’s view, we need see his own plays as mirrors that show us ourselves. As Hamlet says, “the play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king”. As with the staging of “The Mouse Trap” in Hamlet, each of Shakespeare’s plays is a play-within-the-play with which Shakespeare hopes to catch the conscience of his audience. The players on his stage reflect the players on the world’s stage, enabling us to see and understand our own parts more clearly. In this, he is merely following the example of Christ, who sanctifies storytelling with his parables, catching the conscience of every generation with plays-within-the-play, such as the story of the Prodigal Son.

As for the Prodigal Son himself, he is not so much a type as an archetype. This is evident from the way that each of us relates to him. We do not say that the Prodigal Son is like us; we say that we are like the Prodigal Son. He is the archetype or the prototype and we are merely types. In this sense, in some sense, and in a real sense, he is more real than we are. Christ presents us with a fictional narrative, a story, a play-within-the-play, which shows us ourselves in a way that makes sense of ourselves. What is shown to us is not merely a mirror but a magic mirror, or a mystical mirror, or a miraculous mirror, or a moral mirror, which doesn’t merely show us who we are but who we should be and who we shouldn’t be.

As for Christ Himself, He is the Playwright who steps onto the world’s stage to show us the purpose of the play itself. He shows us that our part in the play is to follow His example. We are to love as He loves and suffer as He suffers. If we do as He directs, we will be playing our part in the divine comedy which culminates in the happy ending. If we refuse to do as He directs, we will be choosing the tragic path which leaves us “sans everything”.

So it is that Hamlet lays down his life for his friends, purging his country of the “something rotten” which had cursed it. He has died, as Christ had died, transforming tragedy into a divine comedy, and we are happy to join Horatio in his prayer over the prince’s body that flights of angels might sing him to his rest. By contrast, Macbeth lays down the lives of his friends on the altar erected to his own murderous ambition, becoming the “something rotten” which curses his country. He has refused to be directed by his conscience, preferring his own prideful path of sound and fury, signifying nothing and leaving him “sans everything”.

But what about Jacques? What about the melancholy philosopher who seems tempted towards the nihilism that would destroy Macbeth? Does he follow the same destructive path?

Not in the least. In the final scene of As You Like It, he learns of the dramatic conversion of the wicked Duke Frederick:

Duke Frederick, hearing how that very day

Men of great worth resorted to this forest,

Address’d a mighty power; which were on foot,

In his own conduct, purposely to take

His brother here and put him to the sword:

And to the skirts of this wild wood he came;

Where meeting with an old religious man,

After some question with him, was converted

Both from his enterprise and from the world,

His crown bequeathing to his banish’d brother,

And all their lands restored to them again

That were with him exiled.

The miraculous conversion of the wicked Duke, who had previously been as murderous and malevolent as Macbeth, has a profound affect on the deeply philosophical Jacques:

Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly,

The duke hath put on a religious life

And thrown into neglect the pompous court?

On being told that this was indeed the case, Jacques decides to retire as a courtier and to join the newly converted Duke in the hermit’s cave in which he was now living, presumably in order to court conversion himself:

To him will I : out of these convertites

There is much matter to be heard and learn’d.

Jacques’s final part in the play is playing the part of the Prodigal Son. He still believes that the world’s a stage and the he is merely a player but he no longer believes that the last scene of all is mere oblivion. He has stepped from a potential tragedy into a gloriously divine comedy.

__________

The featured image is “Poster of Thos. W. Keene in William Shakespeare’s MacBeth, c. 1884,” and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Bishop Challoner's Meditations ~ February 1st

ON NOT MAKING LIGHT OF VENIAL SINS

Consider first, that although there be no manner of comparison between the guilt of a mortal sin and that of a venial sin, as there is no manner of comparison between a mote and a beam, Matt. vii. 3, yet the guilt even of the venial sin, considering that it is an offence to a God infinitely great and infinitely good, is so displeasing in his sight that no soul that is stained with it can ever be admitted into his presence till this guilt is purged away, and no man living can be allowed, by any power in heaven or on earth, to commit any one venial sin, no, not to save a kingdom, or even to save the whole world; because the offence to God is a greater evil than the loss of the whole world; and we are not to do anything that is evil to save the whole world. Christians, do you think of this when, upon every trifling apprehension of incurring the displeasure of man, you take refuge in a lie, which is sure to displease your God? Do you think of this when you go on with so little concern, indulging yourselves in vanity, curiosity, sensuality, loss of your precious time, anger, impatience, and other sinful habits, upon the notion that these are but venial sins, and therefore need not be regarded? Oh! you will find one day to your cost how much you have been deceived if you do not correct in time this dangerous and pernicious error.

Consider 2ndly, the danger to which the soul exposes herself when she makes light of venial sins; even the danger of the very worst of evils, that is, of mortals in, and of all its dreadful consequences, both for time and eternity: according to that of the wise man, Ecclus. xix., 'He that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little.' It is true, venial sin does not of itself immediately destroy, or drive away from the soul, the grace and love of God, and therefore does not of itself bring present death to the soul, as mortal sin does; but then it weakens and cools the fervour of divine love; it lessens devotion; it hinders the inspirations of the Holy Ghost from working effectually in the soul; it leaves the soul feeble and drowsy, sick and languishing; so that upon the coming of a greater temptation she easily yields, and quickly falls into mortal sin. and how can we expect it should be otherwise when we have so little regard for God, or his friendship and love, as not to care how much we displease him, provided we can but escape his avenging justice? Or how can the fire of the love of God be kept alive for any long time in the soul when, instead of being nourished with its proper fuel, it is continually losing ground by a diminution of its heat and strength? 

Consider 3rdly, that this danger of falling quickly into mortals sin, by making little or no account of venial sins, is the greater because of the difficulty there often is in distinguishing between what is mortal sin and what is only venial; since even the best divines are often at a loss to find the limits between the one and the other. So that all such as are in the unhappy disposition of venturing, without scruple, as far as the utmost limit of venial sin can be extended, are daily exposed to an evident danger of slipping beyond the bounds, and falling into the pit of mortal sin; the more because of the manifold subtleties and deceits of self-love, which is ever ready to favour and to excuse the inclinations of corrupt nature, and in all such cases to make that appear slight which is really grievous; and the more so when persons give themselves up to a tepid, negligent life, as they generally do who make light of venial sins; for this negligence takes the soul off her guard, disarms her, and lays her interior open to the spiritual sins of pride, envy, and such like disorders, which are mortal sins, and which easily prevail over careless souls, and are seldom thoroughly cured.

Conclude with a sincere resolution of never wilfully, and with full deliberation, consenting to anyone known sin, how venial soever it may seem to be, and much more, of never indulging any habit or custom of any such sin. 'Tis hard to reconcile the indulging such habits as these with the great commandment of the love of God above all things; at least it cannot be expected that divine love should abide to dwell for any long time in a heart where God is so often slighted.

1 February, Antonio, Cardinal Bacci: Meditations For Each Day

 

True Peace

1. Everybody desires peace, but very few people possess it. A good many profound and beautiful definitions have been attempted. Cicero called it "tranquilla libertas," which one might translate as "undisturbed freedom." His general idea was that there can be no peace without liberty. St. Augustine defined it as "hominum ordinata concordia" (De. Civ. Dei, XIX, 13) or "ordered agreement among men." St. Thomas followed on the same lines when he said that peace was "tranquillitas ordinis" (Summa, II-II, q. 29, a. 1 ad. 1) or "tranquillity of order." There are three necessary elements in peace. They are order, harmony, and liberty. Right order is the most important. Everything in us must be in its proper place. As we have shown in the preceding meditation, our lower faculties must be entirely subordinate to right reason, and this must be completely subject to the law of God.

Every act of rebellion against this proper order creates confusion in our nature and makes peace impossible. Furthermore, there must be harmony and agreement. This means that our minds must voluntarily accept and embrace this just order, and not merely endure it with reluctance. As St. Thomas says, peace is an act of charity; it comes indirectly from justice and directly from charity. (Summa, II-II, q. 29; a. 1, ad. 3) We have perfect peace when this just order holds sway within us, provided that we are not enduring it as if it were a yoke, but lovingly accepting it under the inspiration of divine charity. This is that genuine peace which gives us the liberty of the sons of God, that freedom from evil with which Christ has set us free. (Cf. Gal. 4:31; 2 Cor. 3:17) True peace flourishes in an atmosphere of goodness and perishes when it encounters evil. Whether it is in the field of social relations or in the spiritual life, peace without liberty is not peace at all, but slavery and death.

2. When He came into the world, Jesus proclaimed peace. The Angels hovering over His humble manger sang songs of glory to God on high and of peace to men of good will on earth. During His earthly pilgrimage He often spoke of peace. When He forgave sinners their faults, He said to each of them: “Go in peace,” and “sin no more.” (Luke 7:50; 8:48; John 8:11) When He was leaving this earth He bequeathed His peace to His Apostles as if it were a sacred heirloom: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. (John 14:27) We can see from these words that the peace of Jesus is not the same as worldly peace. The Church in its liturgy implores from God that peace which the world cannot give. When the world speaks of peace, it means normally the external, public peace which flows from respect for the law and for the established regime. This is peace; there is no doubt about that. It is necessary and is a gift from God. But it is not enough. We need the inner peace of soul of which we have already spoken, for it is the only true and solid foundation for external peace. Without this peace of soul, external peace is uncertain and fleeting. We have said that true peace is based on three things: Right order, harmony, and liberty. But in order to obtain full and perfect peace still one more thing is necessary; complete and loving abandonment to the will of God. The beginning of real peace and holiness lies in doing the will of God in every detail. The perfection of peace and holiness is to do the will of God in everything purely from love for Him. Dante expresses this profound idea when he describes the peace of the blessed in Heaven, now unshakable in their joyful compliance with the divine will.

"E la sua volontate é nostra pace:
Ella é quel mare, al qual tutto si move
ciò ch' ella crea e che natura face."
(Paradiso, III, 85-87)

"His will is our repose:
He is the ocean into which everything flows
Which He has created in the universe."

3. This absolute and loving abandonment to the will of God in all things brings complete inner peace, but it does not exclude conflict. Interior peace is the result of the practice of virtue and therefore of the struggle against evil. When Our Lord had repeated several times that He had given us His peace, He said also: “Do not think that I have come to send peace upon the earth; I have come to bring a sword, not peace.” (Mt. 10:34) These apparently contradictory words of Our Lord are explained by the fact that the peace of Jesus does not consist in inactivity, but demands action and strife and the conquest of evil. It is a militant peace which Our Lord desires us to possess. Only when we have controlled our passions, when we have made our wills entirely subject to the will of God and have renounced ourselves so that the justice and charity of Jesus Christ can triumph in us, only then shall we reach those serene heights where storms from below cannot come near us and the peace of God reigns supreme.

We find examples of this true and perfect peace among the Saints, Martyrs and Apostles. We read of the Apostles that “they departed... rejoicing that they had been counted worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.” (Acts 5:41) This is an example of that genuine peace which is the result of victory in the combat against evil and of complete and loving submission to the will of God.

Byzantine Saints: Martyr Tryphon of Lampsacus Near Apamea in Syria

Eastern Rite ~ Feasts of 1 February AM 7534

Today is the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, the Forefeast of the Encounter and the Feast of the Holy Martyr Tryphon.

✠✠✠✠✠

The Sunday after the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee is the Sunday of the Prodigal Son. This parable of God’s forgiveness calls us to “come to ourselves” as did the prodigal son, to see ourselves as being “in a far country” far from the Father’s house, and to make the journey of return to God. We are given every assurance by the Master that our heavenly Father will receive us with joy and gladness. We must only “arise and go,” confessing our self-inflicted and sinful separation from that “home” where we truly belong (Luke 15:11-24).

After the Polyeleion at Matins, we first hear the Lenten hymn “By the Waters of Babylon.” It will be sung for the next two Sundays before Lent begins, and it serves to reinforce the theme of exile in today’s Gospel.

Starting tomorrow, the weekday readings summarize the events of Holy Week. On Monday we read Saint Mark's account of the Entry into Jerusalem. On Tuesday we read how Judas went to the chief priests and offered to betray the Lord. On the night before His death Christ tells His disciples that one of them will betray Him. He also predicts that they will desert Him and that Peter will deny Him three times. On Wednesday the Gospel describes how Judas betrayed the Savior with a kiss. Thursday's Gospel tells how Jesus was questioned by Pilate. On Friday we read the narrative of Christ's crucifixion and death.

Kontakion — Tone 3

I have recklessly forgotten Your glory, O Father; / and among sinners I have scattered the riches which You had given me. / Therefore, I cry to You like the Prodigal: / “I have sinned before You, O compassionate Father; / receive me a penitent and make me as one of Your hired servants.”

✠✠✠✠✠

The Typikon should be consulted if the Forefeast falls on the Sunday of the Pharisee, the Publican, or Meatfare.

Because of the Forefeast of the Meeting of the Lord, the service to Saint Tryphon (February 1) may be moved to Compline or to another day, as the Pastor decides, unless the parish is dedicated to Saint Tryphon, or there is a particular devotion to him.

Troparion — Tone 1

The celestial choir of heavenly angels / bends down to the earth / and sees the First-born of all creation / being carried into the Temple as a babe / by a Mother who has not known man, / and in amazement sings with us / a pre-festal hymn.

Kontakion — Tone 6

The Word, unseen with the Father, / now is seen in the flesh, ineffably born of the Virgin, / and is given into the arms of the priest and Elder. / Let us worship Him, our True God.

✠✠✠✠✠

The Martyr Tryphon was born in Phrygia, one of the districts of Asia Minor, in the village of Lampsacus. From his early years, the Lord granted him the power to cast out demons and to heal various maladies. He once saved the inhabitants of his native city from starvation. Saint Tryphon, by the power of his prayer, turned back a plague of locusts that were devouring the grain and devastating the fields.

Saint Tryphon gained particular fame by casting out an evil spirit from the daughter of the Roman emperor Gordian (238-244). Helping everyone in distress, he asked only one thing from them: faith in Jesus Christ, by Whose grace he healed them.

When the emperor Decius (249-251) assumed the imperial throne, he began a fierce persecution of Christians. Someone reported to the commander Aquilinus that Saint Tryphon was boldly preaching faith in Christ and that he led many to Baptism. The saint was arrested and subjected to interrogation, during which he fearlessly confessed his faith.

He was subjected to harsh tortures: they beat him with clubs, raked his body with iron hooks, scorched his flesh with fire, and led him through the city after iron nails were hammered into his feet. Saint Tryphon bravely endured all the torments without complaint.

Finally, he was condemned to beheading with a sword. The holy martyr prayed before his execution, thanking God for strengthening him in his sufferings. He also asked the Lord to bless those who should call upon his name for help. Just as the soldiers raised the sword over the head of the holy martyr, he surrendered his soul into the hands of God. This event occurred in the city of Nicea in the year 250.

Christians wrapped the holy body of the martyr in a clean shroud and wanted to bury him in the city of Nicea, where he suffered, but Saint Tryphon in a vision commanded them to take his body to his native land to the village of Lampsacus. Later on, the relics of Saint Tryphon were transferred to Constantinople, and then to Rome.

In Russia, Saint Tryphon is regarded as the patron saint of birds. There is a story that when Tsar Ivan the Terrible was out hunting, his falconer carelessly allowed the Tsar’s favourite falcon to fly away. The Tsar ordered the falconer Tryphon Patrikeiev to find the bird within three days, or else he would be put to death. Tryphon searched all through the forest, but without luck.

On the third day, exhausted by long searching, he returned to Moscow to the place called Marinaya Grove. Overcome with weariness, he lay down to rest, fervently praying to his patron saint, the Martyr Tryphon, for help.

In a dream he saw a youth on a white horse, holding the Tsar’s falcon on his hand. The youth said, “Take the lost bird, go to the Tsar and do not grieve.” When he awakened, the falconer actually spotted the falcon on a pine tree. He took it to the Tsar and told him about the miraculous help he received from the holy Martyr Tryphon. Grateful to Saint Tryphon for saving his life, Tryphon Patrikeiev built a chapel on the spot where the saint appeared. Later on, he also built a church dedicated to the holy Martyr Tryphon in Moscow.

The holy martyr is greatly venerated in the Russian Catholic Church as the heavenly protector of Moscow. Many Russian icons depict the saint holding a falcon on his arm.

Troparion — Tone 4

Your holy martyr Tryphon, O Lord, / through his suffering has received an incorruptible crown from You, our God. / For having Your strength, he laid low his adversaries, / and shattered the powerless boldness of demons. / Through his intercessions, save our souls!

Kontakion — Tone 8

By the power of the Trinity you destroyed polytheism to the ends of the earth, / and you were honoured by Christ, all-glorious Tryphon; / having conquered tyrants through Christ the Saviour, / you received your crown of martyrdom and the gift of divine healing, for you are invincible.

IN LUMINE FIDEI: 1 FEBRUARY – SAINT BRIGID OF IRELAND (Virgin)

IN LUMINE FIDEI: 1 FEBRUARY – SAINT BRIGID OF IRELAND (Virgin):   Brigid was born at Fouchard (Foughard) in the diocese of Armagh, County Louth (then part of Ulster) circa 451. Her father, a nobleman c...

IN LUMINE FIDEI: THE HISTORY, MYSTERY AND PRACTICE OF SEPTUAGESIMA

Once again, I'm sharing a seasonal post from In Lumine Fidei in full.

IN LUMINE FIDEI: THE HISTORY, MYSTERY AND PRACTICE OF SEPTUAGESIMA: 

 Dom Prosper Gueranger:
The History of Septuagesima

The Season of Septuagesima comprises the three weeks immediately preceding Lent. It forms one of the principal divisions of the Liturgical Year, and is itself divided into three parts, each part corresponding to a week: the first is called Septuagesima; the second, Sexagesima; the third, Quinquagesima.

All three are named from their numerical reference to Lent which, in the language of the Church, is called Quadragesima — that is, Forty — because the great Feast of Easter is prepared for by the holy exercises of Forty Days. The words Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, and Septuagesima tell us of the same great Solemnity as looming in the distance, and as being the great object towards which the Church would have us now begin to turn all our thoughts, and desires and devotion.

Now, the Feast of Easter must be prepared for by a forty-days’ recollectedness and penance. Those forty-days are one of the principal Seasons of the Liturgical Year, and one of the most powerful means employed by the Church for exciting in the hearts of her children the spirit of their Christian vocation. It is of the utmost importance that such a Season of grace should produce its work in our souls — the renovation of the whole spiritual life. The Church, therefore, has instituted a preparation for the holy time of Lent. She gives us the three weeks of Septuagesima during which she withdraws us, as much as may be, from the noisy distractions of the world, in order that our hearts may be the more readily impressed by the solemn warning she is to give us at the commencement of Lent by marking our foreheads with ashes.

This prelude to the holy season of Lent was not known in the early ages of Christianity: its institution would seem to have originated in the Greek Church. The practice of this Church being never to fast on Saturdays, the number of fasting-days in Lent, besides the six Sundays of Lent (on which, by universal custom, the faithful never fasted) there were also the six Saturdays which the Greeks would never allow to be observed as days of fasting: so that their Lent was short, by twelve days, of the Forty spent by our Saviour in the desert. To make up the deficiency they were obliged to begin their Lent so many days earlier.

The Church of Rome had no such motive for anticipating the season of those privations which belong to Lent for, from the earliest antiquity, she kept the Saturdays of Lent (and as often, during the rest of the year, as circumstances might require) as fasting days. At the close of the sixth century Saint Gregory the Great alludes, in one of his Homilies to the fast of Lent being less than Forty Days, owing to the Sundays which come during that holy season. “There are,” he says, “from this Day (the first Sunday of Lent) to the joyous Feast of Easter, six Weeks, that is, forty-two days. As we do not fast on the six Sundays, there are but thirty-six fasting days... which we offer to God as the tithe of our year.”

It was therefore after the pontificate of Saint Gregory that the last four days of Quinquagesima Week were added to Lent in order that the number of Fasting Days might be exactly Forty. As early, however, as the ninth century, the custom of beginning Lent on Ash Wednesday was of obligation in the whole Latin Church. All the manuscript copies of the Gregorian Sacramentary which bear that date call this Wednesday the In capite jejunii, that is to say, the beginning of the fast. And Amalarius who gives us every detail of the Liturgy of the ninth century, tells us that it was, even then, the rule to begin the Fast four days before the first Sunday of Lent. We find the practice confirmed by two Councils held in that century. 1 But out of respect for the form of Divine Service drawn up by Saint Gregory, the Church does not make any important change in the Office of these four days. Up to the Vespers of Saturday, when alone she begins the Lenten rite, she observes the rubrics prescribed for Quinquagesima Week.

Peter of Blois who lived in the twelfth century, tells us what was the practice in his days. He says: “All religious begin the Fast of Lent at Septuagesima. The Greeks, at Sexagesima. The Clergy, at Quinquagesima, and the rest of Christians who form the Church Militant on Earth begin their Lent on the Wednesday following Quinquagesima.” The secular Clergy, as we learn from these words, were bound to begin the Lenten Fast somewhat before the laity, though it was only by two days, that is, on Monday, as we gather from the Life of Saint Ulric, Bishop of Augsburg, written in the tenth century. The Council of Clermont in 1095 at which Pope Urban II presided, has a decree sanctioning the obligation of the Clergy beginning abstinence from flesh-meat at Quinquagesima. This Sunday was called, indeed, Dominica carnis privii, and Carnis privium Sacerdotum (that is, Priests’ Carnival Sunday) — but the term is to be understood in the sense of the announcement being made, on that Sunday, of the abstinence having to begin on the following day. We will find further on that a like usage was observed in the Greek Church on the three Sundays preceding Lent. This law, which obliged the Clergy to these two additional days of abstinence, was in force in the thirteenth century, as we learn from a Council held at Angers which threatens with suspension all Priests who neglect to begin Lent on the Monday of Quinquagesima Week.

This usage, however, soon became obsolete and in the fifteenth century, the secular Clergy and even the Monks themselves, began the Lenten Fast, like the rest of the faithful, on Ash Wednesday. There can be no doubt, but that the original motive for this anticipation — which, after several modifications, was limited to the four days immediately preceding Lent — was to remove from the Greeks the pretext of taking scandal at the Latins who did not fast a full Forty days. Ratramnus, in his Controversy with the Greeks, clearly implies it. But the Latin Church did not think it necessary to carry her condescension further by imitating the Greek ante-lenten usages which originated, as we have already said, in the eastern custom of not fasting on Saturdays.1

Thus it was, that the Roman Church, by this anticipation of Lent by Four days, gave the exact number of Forty Days to the holy Season which she had instituted in imitation of the Forty Days spent by our Saviour in the desert. While faithful to her ancient practice of looking on the Saturday as a day appropriate for penitential exercises, she gladly borrowed from the Greek Church the custom of preparing for Lent by giving to the Liturgy of the three preceding weeks a tone of holy mournfulness.

Even as early as the beginning of the ninth century, as we learn from Amalarius, the Alleluia and Gloria in excelsis were suspended in the Septuagesima Offices. The monks conformed to the custom, although the Rule of Saint Benedict prescribed otherwise. Finally, in the second half of the eleventh century Pope Alexander II enacted that the total suspension of the Alleluia should be everywhere observed, beginning with the Vespers of the Saturday preceding Septuagesima Sunday. This Pope was but renewing a rule already sanctioned in that same century, by Pope Leo IX, and which was inserted in the body of Canon Law.

Thus was the present important period of the Liturgical Year, after various changes, established in the Cycle of the Church. It has been there upwards of a thousand years. Its name, Septuagesima (Seventy) expresses, as we have already remarked, a numerical relation to Quadragesima (the Forty Days), although in reality there are not seventy but only sixty-three days from Septuagesima Sunday to Easter. We will speak of the mystery of the name in the following Chapter. The first Sunday of Lent being called Quadragesima (Forty), each of the three previous Sundays has a name expressive of an additional ten: the nearest to Lent, Quinquagesima (Fifty); the middle one, Sexagesima (Sixty); the third, Septuagesima (Seventy).

As the season of Septuagesima depends upon the time of the Easter celebration, it comes sooner or later, according to the changes of that great Feast. The 18th of January and the 22nd of February are called the Septuagesima Keys, because the Sunday which is called Septuagesima cannot be earlier in the year, than the first, nor later than the second, of these two days.

The Mystery of Septuagesima

The Season upon which we are now entering is expressive of several profound mysteries. But these mysteries belong not only to the three weeks which are preparatory to Lent: they continue throughout the whole period of time which separates us from the great Feast of Easter.

The number seven is the basis of all these mysteries. We have already seen how the Holy Church came to introduce the season of Septuagesima into her Calendar. Let us now meditate on the doctrine hid under the symbols of her Liturgy. And first, let us listen to Saint Augustine who thus gives us the clue to the whole of our Season's mysteries. “There are two times,” says the Holy Doctor: “one which is now, and is spent in the temptations and tribulations of this life; the other which will be then, and will be spent in eternal security and joy. In figure of these, we celebrate two periods: the time ‘before Easter,’ and the time ‘after Easter.’ That which is ‘before Easter,’ signifies the sorrow of this present life. That which is ‘after Easter,’ the blessedness of our future state... Hence it is that we spend the first in fasting and prayer, and in the second we give up our fasting, and give ourselves to praise.”’

The Church, the interpreter of the Sacred Scriptures, often speaks to us of two places which correspond with these two times of Saint Augustine. These two places are Babylon and Jerusalem. Babylon is the image of this world of sin, in the midst of which the Christian has to spend his years of probation. Jerusalem is the heavenly country where he is to repose after all his trials. The people of Israel, whose whole history is but one great type of the human race, was banished from Jerusalem and kept in bondage in Babylon.

Now, this captivity which kept the Israelites exiles from Sion lasted seventy years, and it is to express this mystery, as Alcuin, Amalarius, Ivo of Chartres and all the great Liturgists tell us, that the Church fixed the number of Seventy for the days of expiation. It is true, there are but sixty-three days between Septuagesima and Easter, but the Church, according to the style so continually used in the Sacred Scriptures, uses the round number instead of the literal and precise one.

The duration of the world itself, according to the ancient Christian tradition, is divided into seven ages. The human race must pass through seven Ages before the dawning of the day of eternal life. The first Age included the time from the creation of Adam to Noah. The second begins with Noah and the renovation of the Earth by the Deluge, and ends with the vocation of Abraham. The third opens with this first formation of Gods chosen people, and continues as far as Moses, through whom God gave the Law. The fourth consists of the period between Moses and David in whom the house of Judah received the kingly power. The fifth is formed of the years which passed between David’s reign and the captivity of Babylon, inclusively. The sixth dates from the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, and takes us on as far as the birth of our Saviour. Then, finally, comes the seventh Age. It starts with the rising of this merciful Redeemer, the Sun of Justice, and is to continue till the dread coming of the Judge of the living and the dead. These are the Seven great divisions of Time after which, Eternity.

In order to console us in the midst of the combats which so thickly beset our path, the Church — like a beacon shining amidst the darkness of this our earthly abode — shows us another Seven which is to succeed the one we are now preparing to pass through. After the Septuagesima of mourning we will have the bright Easter with its Seven weeks of gladness, foreshadowing the happiness and bliss of Heaven. After having fasted with our Jesus, and suffered with Him, the day will come when we will rise together with Him, and our hearts will follow Him to the highest heavens, and then after a brief interval, we will feel descending upon us the Holy Ghost, with His Seven Gifts. The celebration of all these wondrous joys will take us Seven weeks, as the great Liturgists observe in their interpretation of the Rites of the Church: the seven joyous weeks from Easter to Pentecost will not be too long for the future glad Mysteries which, after all, will be but figures of a still gladder future, the future of eternity.

Having heard these sweet whisperings of hope, let us now bravely face the realities brought before us by our dear Mother the Church. We are sojourners on this Earth. We are exiles and captives in Babylon, that city which plots our ruin. If we love our country — if we long to return to it — we must be proof against the lying allurements of this strange land, and refuse the cup she proffers us and with which she maddens so many of our fellow captives. She invites us to join in her feasts and her songs, but we must unstring our harps, and hang them on the willows that grow on her river’s bank till the signal be given for our return to Jerusalem (Psalm cxxv.) She will ask us to sing to her the melodies of our dear Sion, but how will we, who are so far from home, have heart to sing the Song of the Lord in a strange land? (Psalm cxxxvi) No, there must be no sign that we are content to be in bondage, or we will deserve to be slaves forever.

These are the sentiments with which the Church would inspire us during the penitential Season which we are now beginning. She wishes us to reflect on the dangers that beset us — dangers which arise from our own selves, and from creatures. During the rest of the year she loves to hear us chant the song of Heaven, the sweet Alleluia, but now she bids us close our lips to this word of joy because we are in Babylon. We are pilgrims absent from our Lord (2 Corinthians v. 6). Let us keep our glad hymn for the day of His return. We are sinners, and have but too often held fellowship with the world of God’s enemies. Let us become purified by repentance, for it is written that praise is unseemly in the mouth of a sinner (Ecclesiasticus xv. 9).

The leading feature, then, of Septuagesima is the total suspension of the Alleluia, which is not to be again heard upon the Earth until the arrival of that happy day when, having suffered death with our Jesus and having been buried together with Him, we will rise again with Him to a new life (Colossians ii. 12).

The sweet Hymn of the Angels, Gloria in excelsis Deo, which we have sung every Sunday since the birth of our Saviour in Bethlehem, is also taken from us. It is only on the Feasts of the Saints, which may be kept during the week, that we will be allowed to repeat it. The night Office of the Sunday is to lose, also, from now till Easter, its magnificent Ambrosian Hymn, the Te Deum. And at the end of the Holy Sacrifice, the Deacon will no longer dismiss the faithful with his solemn Ite, Missa est, but will simply invite them to continue their prayers in silence, and bless the Lord, the God of mercy, who bears with us notwithstanding all our sins.

After the Gradual of the Mass, instead of the thrice repeated Alleluia which prepared our hearts to listen to the voice of God in the Holy Gospel, we will hear but a mournful and protracted chant called, on that account, the Tract. That the eye, too, may teach us, that the Season we are entering on is one of mourning, the Church will vest her Ministers (both on Sundays and the days during the week, which are not Feasts of Saints) in the sombre Purple. Until Ash Wednesday, however, she permits the Deacon to wear his dalmatic, and the Subdeacon his tunic. But from that day forward they must lay aside these vestments of joy, for Lent will then have begun and our holy Mother will inspire us with the deep spirit of penance by suppressing everything of that glad pomp, which she loves, at other seasons, to bring into the Sanctuary of her God.

The Practice of Septuagesima

The joys of Christmastide seem to have fled far from us. The forty days of gladness brought us by the birth of our Emmanuel are gone. The atmosphere of holy Church has grown overcast, and we are warned that the gloom is still to thicken. Have we, then, for ever lost Him, we so anxiously and longingly sighed after, during the four slow weeks of our Advent? Has our divine Sun of Justice that rose so brightly in Bethlehem now stopped His course and left our guilty Earth?

Not so. The Son of God, the Child of Mary, has not left us. The Word was made Flesh in order that He might dwell among us. A glory, far greater than that of his birth, when Angels sang their hymns, awaits Him, and we are to share it with Him. Only, He must win this new and greater glory by strange countless sufferings. He must purchase it by a most cruel and ignominious death: and we, if we would have our share in the triumph of His Resurrection, must follow Him in the Way of the Cross, all wet with the tears and the blood He shed for us.

The grave maternal voice of the Church will soon be heard inviting us to the Lenten penance. But she wishes us to prepare for this laborious baptism by employing these three weeks in considering the deep wounds caused in our souls by sin. True, the beauty and loveliness of the Little Child born to us in Bethlehem, are great beyond measure, but our souls are so needy that they require other lessons than those He gave us of humility and simplicity.

Our Jesus is the Victim of the divine justice, and He has now attained the fullness of His age. The altar on which He is to be slain is ready, and since it is for us that He is to be sacrificed, we should at once set ourselves to consider what are the debts we have contracted towards that infinite Justice which is about to punish the Innocent One instead of us the guilty.

The mystery of a God becoming Incarnate for the love of His creature has opened to us the path of the Illuminative Way, but we have not yet seen the brightest of its Light. Let not our hearts be troubled. The divine wonders we witnessed at Bethlehem are to be surpassed by those that are to grace the day of our Jesus’ Triumph: but that our eye may contemplate these future mysteries, it must be purified by courageously looking into the deep abyss of our own personal miseries. God will grant us His divine light for the discovery; and if we come to know ourselves, to understand the grievousness of original sin, to see the malice of our own sins, and to comprehend, at least in some degree, the infinite mercy of God towards us, we will be prepared for the holy expiations of Lent, and for the ineffable joys of Easter.

The Season, then, of Septuagesima is one of most serious thought. Perhaps we could not better show the sentiments with which the Church would have her children to be filled at this period of her Year than by quoting a few words from the eloquent exhortation given to his people at the beginning of Septuagesima by the celebrated Ivo of Chartres. He spoke thus to the faithful of the 11th century: “‘We know,’ says the Apostle, ‘that every creature groans and travails in pain even till now: and not only it, but ourselves, also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body’ (Romans viii. 22, 23). The creature here spoken of is the soul that has been regenerated from the corruption of sin to the likeness of God: she groans within herself, at seeing herself made subject to vanity. She, like one that travails, is filled with pain, and is devoured by an anxious longing to be in that country which is still so far off. It was this travail and pain that the Psalmist was suffering when he exclaimed: ‘Woe is one, that my sojourning is prolonged!’ (Psalm cxix. 5) Nay, that Apostle who was one of the first members of the Church and had received the Holy Spirit, longed to have, in all its reality, that adoption of the sons of God which he already had in hope. And he too thus exclaimed in his pain: ‘I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ’ (Philippians i. 3). During these days, therefore, we must do what we do at all seasons of the Year — only, we must do it more earnestly and fervently we must sigh and weep after our country from which we were exiled in consequence of having indulged in sinful pleasures. We must redouble our efforts in order to regain it by compunction and weeping of heart... Let us now shed tears in the way that we may afterwards be glad in our country. Let us now so run the race of this present life that we may make sure of the prize of the supernal vocation (Philippians iii. 14). Let us not be like imprudent wayfarers, forgetting our country and preferring our banishment to our home. Let us not become like those senseless invalids who feel not their ailments and seek no remedy. We despair of a sick man who will not be persuaded that he is in danger. No: let us run to our Lord, the Physician of eternal salvation. Let us show Him our wounds, and cry out to Him with all our earnestness: ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am weak: heal me, for my bones are troubled’ (Psalm vi. 3). Then will He forgive us our iniquities, heal us of our infirmities, and satisfy our desire with good things” (Psalm cii. 3, 5).

From all this it is evident that the Christian who would spend Septuagesima according to the spirit of the Church must make war upon that false security, that self-satisfaction, which are so common to effeminate and tepid souls, and produce spiritual barrenness. It is well for them if these delusions do not insensibly lead them to the absolute loss of the true Christian spirit. He that thinks himself dispensed from that continual watchfulness, which is so strongly inculcated by our Divine Master (Mark xiii. 37), is already in the enemy’s power. He that feels no need of combat and of struggle in order to persevere and make progress in virtue (unless he have been honoured with a privilege, which is both rare and dangerous), should fear that he is not even on the road to that Kingdom of God which is only to be won by violence (Matthew xi. 12). He that forgets the sins which God’s mercy has forgiven him, should fear his being the victim of a dangerous delusion (Ecclesiasticus v. 5). Let us, during these days which we are going to devote to the honest unflinching contemplation of our miseries, give glory to our God and derive, from the knowledge of ourselves, fresh motives of confidence in Him who, in spite of all our wretchedness and sin, humbled Himself so low as to become one of us in order that He might exalt us even to union with Himself.

1The Gallican Liturgy had retained several usages of the Oriental Churches, to which it owed, in part, its origin: hence, it was not without some difficulty that the custom of abstaining and fasting on Saturdays was introduced into Gaul. Until such time as the Churches of that country had adopted the Roman custom, in that point of discipline, they were necessitated to anticipate the Fast of Lent. The first Council of Orleans, held in the early part of the sixth century, enjoins the Faithful to observe, before Easter, Quadragesima (as the Latins call Lent) and not Quinquagesima, in order, says the Council, that unity of custom may be maintained. Towards the close of the same century, the fourth Council held in the same city repeals the same prohibition, and explains the intentions of the making such an enactment by ordering that the Saturdays during Lent should be observed as days of fasting. Previously to this, that is, in the years 511 and 541, the first and second Councils of Orange had combated the same abuse, by also forbidding the imposing on the Faithful the obligation of commencing the Fast at Quinquagesima. The introduction of the Roman Liturgy into France, which was brought about by the zeal of Pepin and Charlemagne, finally established, in that country, the custom of keeping the Saturday as a day of penance. And, as we have just seen, the beginning Lent on Quinquagesima was not observed excepting by the Clergy. In the thirteenth century the only Church in the Patriarchate of the West which began Lent earlier than the Church of Rome, was that of Poland: its Lent opened on the Monday of Septuagesima, which was owing to the rites of the Greek Church being so much used in Poland. The custom was abolished, even for that country, by Pope Innocent the fourth, in the year 1248.