Ordination Updates from Diocese of Baker

Here are some announcements from the Diocese of Baker website:

We are pleased to announce that the
Ordination of Bishop-elect Liam Cary
will be available via this website by clicking on the link below.

http://www.livestream.com/bishopordination

This link is currently under construction. May 9, 2012 2:00 pm.

During the test phase, you may notice advertisements;
however, during the actual broadcast of the Ordination,
there will be no interruptions.

________________

ORDINATION UPDATE

Information on Tickets: 

For those with tickets, we do request that you be at the church IN YOUR SEAT, IN YOUR ASSIGNED SECTION BY 1:30 PM; doors will open at Noon. We realize this sounds early, but there will be beautiful music to entertain you. Please use this time for silent prayer for our new Bishop. Your ticket is color coded to the section in which you will be seated. There is some advantage to being early; in some cases there might be two sections for the same color, one section closer than the other. These seats will be on a first come first serve basis.

Information on Parking Permit: 

If you received a Parking Pass, please place it on the dashboard on the passenger side. If you do not have a Parking Permit, there will be people at street-side directing you to off-site parking at the Church of the Nazarene at 1270 NE 27th Street. This is just south of St. Francis Church. We will be running shuttle buses from there to St. Francis Church. You might want to allow a little more time for this.

We are going to request no picture taking during the ceremony except by designated photographers!

For entrance into the church for reserved seating EACH PERSON MUST PRESENT A TICKET regardless of receiving an invitation. Also, in order to park in the church parking area YOU MUST HAVE YOUR PARKING PERMIT DISPLAYED. All others will be directed to the additional seating and parking areas respectively.

We want this occasion to be a wonderful, blessed and memorable event so we appreciate your cooperation very much. We look forward to seeing you on the 18th.

What is Moral Relativism?

Moral relativism is the belief that there are no universal, immutable standards by which to judge human behavior. Up until the time of the early Renaissance, moral absolutes were almost universally accepted. And most of the people in the Western world were Christians, who sought their moral values from Scripture and Tradition of the Roman Catholic Church.

 

The Reformation opened the door to questioning the truths of Christianity and substituting individual judgment for previously accepted standards. First the Enlightenment, with its new emphasis on science and human learning, and then later philosophers began to ignore a foundation of natural rights based on the dignity of  man and the norms of the Creator.

“The legal positivists, stemming from Spinoza, Hobbes, and Rousseau, hold that human rights is a social contract, often expressed by a written constitution, but admit no higher law.”[1]

The Christian, on the other hand, accepts the ideals of truth and goodness, handed down by God to his creatures. He guides his life by standards that do not change, even if the application of those ideals is sometimes hard work. Abandoning this view has caused much of the confusion in the modern world.

“Since relativists have to admit that in our historical experience all the great cultures of the past have destroyed themselves and the survival of the human species has itself no guarantee, they are forced simply to accept the lack of a firm foundation for morality as a tragedy of the human condition.”[2]

Relativism is based on several arguments: the psychological, the cultural, social conditioning, freedom, tolerance and situationalism. Peter Kreeft, in “A Refutation of Moral Relativism,” deals with all these arguments by showing that “the most radical threat to living morally today is the loss of moral principles.”[3]

 

He goes on to argue for absolutism on the grounds of consequences, tradition, moral experience and the moral language common to all men. Further, Kreeft says, “Neither philosophy nor science nor logic nor common sense have ever refuted traditional moral absolutism. Relativism is not rational; it is a rationalization.”[4]

For those who seek to live a life truly free and good, then, the need is to turn to revealed truth through Scripture and the Church for guidelines. “God, who does not fail, in creating us has built into our nature, for all its fragility, certain basic needs and goals that ground a natural moral law and the human rights which flow from it.”[5]

by Stephanie Swee

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[1] Ashley, Benedict, O.P., Living the Truth in Love. (New York: St. Paul’s Press, 1996), 277.

 [2] Ashely, 278.

[3] Kreeft, Peter, “A Refutation of Moral Relativism.. www.peterkreeft.com/audio/05_relativism, 1

[4] Kreeft, 12.

[5] Ashley, 278.

Another Parish: Our Lady of the Valley in La Grande

Returning to the “get to know your diocese” theme, here we highlight some photos from Our Lady of the Valley Parish in La Grande, Oregon.

This parish has a nice website with the basics simply presented and easy to access. There are no photo albums at this point, but the person who takes care of the website is a stellar photographer and has provided me with some photos of the stained glass windows to show you here (they're down below).


First, here are some shots of the exterior of the church:

In hunting around on the internet for some photos, I ran across this site which had these wonderful photos taken during the construction of the church:

And here are some of the stained glass windows:

Here are some shots of the old high altar and side altars:

Here you can see the reredoes behind the newer stand-alone altar which has replaced the old high altar for the most part. The old altar has been put into use in the last couple of years for the celebration of the extraordinary form of the Mass:

The statues that were probably originally in those nooks are still floating around the parish in other places. Perhaps one day the sanctuary will be restored to its original glory!

See also:
Parish Pictures: Diocese of Baker
Holy Redeemer Parish
Our Lady of Angels in Hermiston

What Makes a Church a Cathedral?

I was alerted to an interesting article at New Liturgical Movement: “Cathedral: Home for Liturgy of the Hours” by Matthew Alderman. 

Mr. Alderman suggests that a question that should be asked in designing a cathedral is, “What makes a church a cathedral?”

Of course, there is the obvious answer that the presence of the bishop’s cathedra makes a cathedral, but there’s more to it than that. Mr. Alderman points to Westminster Cathedral as an example (my emphases throughout):

It is instructive to compare the liturgical milieu that informed Westminster Cathedral’s establishment in 1895, with that of a typical large American diocese. Part of the problem is of course a diminished sense of the differences between Mass as celebrated by a bishop (though it is still laid out in the Ordinary Form’s Ceremonial of Bishops) and a priest’s mass, but these are ultimately matters of degree rather than quality. The most significant difference, in my mind, lies in the inclusion or exclusion of the Liturgy of the Hours as prayed by a community.

…Cardinal Vaughn saw the Office as essential to the efficacy of “a live Cathedral,” a missionary presence at the heart of a very secular city, “functioning […] on behalf of others and winning them graces.” …[H]e argued that this public prayer was “the highest function of the apostolic calling.” In this regard, Westminster Cathedral started out not much different than our own standard American cathedral. Being a mission territory, America got out of the habit of having cathedral chapters capable of singing the Office…

Choir stalls: ideal configuration
for singing the Divine Office

I am not a historian by any means, but I think Mr. Alderman has made a very important point here regarding the Church in the US: “America got out of the habit of having cathedral chapters capable of singing the Office”. I have thought for some time that America got out of the habit of singing any Liturgy – especially the Mass! This would be understandable, especially in the history of the Westward expansion. 

For instance, consider the history of theDiocese of Baker. Long distances still separate parishes within the diocese; how much more those distances must have contributed to deterioration of the liturgy in times when travel was much more restricted! In sparsely populated Eastern Oregon, I’m sure there weren’t too many of the faithful who were trained to sing Gregorian chant propers at Mass. In addition, the Protestant churches springing up probably accomplished two things: pulling people away from their Catholic faith, and encouraging Catholics to substitutes hymns for the chants at Mass.

But the singing of the Divine Office in the cathedral parish could be of great benefit to the community. Mr. Alderman notes:

…besides the spiritual graces attendant on placing the full Office at the heart of a diocesan community, there is also considerable evangelical and apostolic merit to the practice…[S]uch a living, breathing exemplar of the movement of sanctified time could be a lightning-rod for an explosion of religious revival. It would also represent a tangible way of fulfilling the Second Vatican Council's goal of encouraging the faithful to regularly participate in the Liturgy of the Hours…The Council recommended:

Pastors of souls should see to it that the chief hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church on Sundays and the more solemn feasts. And the laity, too, are encouraged to recite the Divine Office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually. (Par. 100)

If this is true of parish churches, how much more it should be of the cathedral church of every diocese!

I can’t speak for other dioceses, but the role of the cathedral church is something that seems to be severely neglected in the Diocese of Baker. St. Francis de Sales Cathedral seems to be more of a historic church than the active and “living” center of the Diocese. The last priestly ordination did not take place at the Cathedral, nor did Bishop Vasa's episcopal ordination. Bishop-elect Liam Cary’s will take place in a parish church, which, though large, was never designed with any kind of ordination in mind. And the anniversary of the dedication of our cathedral is probably only celebrated in the cathedral parish, and then only sporadically and without a bishop present.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see some semblance of cathedral-icity restored to St. Francis de Sales Cathedral?

Mass Engages All of Our Senses

There’s a great post at Shameless Popery by Joe Heschmeyer. Here are the introduction and conclusion; read the interesting details of Old Testament, Early Christian, and heavenly worship here.

Worshiping with Our Whole Bodies

One of the most beautiful things about Catholic worship, particularly when it's done well, is that it's a full-body experience.  We smell the incense, we sing Psalms and hymns (and hear these being sung), we listen to the Scriptures and the homily, we see the Sacrifice of the Mass (and the priest's liturgical gestures are loaded with meaning), we kneel, sit, stand, we taste the Blessed Sacrament, we embrace at the sign of peace.  The Liturgy reflects the Catholic view of the body, and of matter, and our deep-seated belief that Creation should give glory to God.  It's also consistent with the worship of the Old Testament, of the early Christians, and of the apparent Heavenly Liturgy described in the Book of Revelation.

…

Conclusion

Old Testament, early Christian, and heavenly worship are remarkably similar: all five senses are engaged.  This worship avoids two extremes. On the one hand, the senses aren't violated or overwhelmed, like eating Limburger cheese at a rock concert.  But on the other hand, the senses aren't shunned or ignored, as if we were beings of pure spirit, or as if the body were inherently evil.  Instead, the senses are exalted, in that they are drawn up into the worship of God.  And they're engaged in very similar ways: through sacred art and architecture, religious vestments, anointing oil, incense, sacred music, and partaking of the sacrifice through eating.  I would suggest that these things are not merely incidental, but are important elements of drawing our whole being, body and soul, into the worship of God.

Care and Feeding of a Choir: Wendi

Wendi (of Cradle Stories) is back with another good post on choirs. Be sure to read the whole thing at the link. Here’s the first part – some excellent points, I think:

The Proper Care and Feeding of a Choir...Part 1

Point 1:  Decide that you want a choir rather than song leaders.

In case you aren't sure what the difference is...I would say...standards and preparation.

For some reason churches have developed the attitude that everyone is welcome to join the choir. That way no one gets their feelings hurt.

That's song leaders, not a choir.

Great music does NOT just happen.

It requires a certain degree of musical ability on the part of the singers, good direction, and adequate rehearsal. Not everyone can sing well.  It's not mean or uncharitable to say so, that is a demonstrable fact.  

Now that doesn't mean that you have to be a professional vocal musician to join the choir. In fact, I enthusiastically encourage people with no previous experience to join the church choir. If God gave you the ability to sing I can think of no better place to develop that talent than in service to Him. It's been my experience that a church choir is a very supportive environment in which to develop vocal talent.

What it does mean however, is that the person wanting to join needs to be able to match pitch. Matching pitch is the ability to sing a note played on the piano or sung by someone else. It is absolutely essential in a choir situation, since one person singing off pitch will throw off the entire chord. When there is a wrong note, it's heard and that discourages the rest of the choir, not to mention the assault on the ears of those listening.

How do you find out if someone can match pitch?
 
Point 2:  Hold Auditions.

If everyone can match pitch, then everyone gets in.

If someone auditions and can't match pitch, offer to work with them privately for a few weeks.  For most, that will be all the additional work required.  Very few people are truly tone deaf.

If a person can't match pitch after you've worked with them, then and only then, charitably suggest that they should seek another way to serve the church.
 

This is not being mean.  It's being fair to everyone, including the person that can't sing well. It's a lot more cruel to lie to someone and discourage the rest of the choir than it is to be up front.

Holding auditions also lets people know that you take music seriously and therefore...so should they.  It will set the right tone for all your future efforts to build a good choral program.

Now go here to read the rest of Wendi’s points.

The Mary Month of May

May is for Mary! (And May 1 is the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker).