As he passed by the Sea of Galilee,
he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea;
they were fishermen.
Jesus said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Then they [εὐθὺς] abandoned their nets and followed him.
He walked along a little farther
and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.
They too were in a boat mending their nets.
Then he [εὐθὺς] called them.
So they left their father Zebedee in the boat
along with the hired men and followed him.

What’s missing is any translation of Mark’s two uses (out of his forty-one uses) of εὐθὺς, “immediately, straightway.”

Any insider information?

We modern Westerners don’t go in for apocalyptic much these days, perhaps because we are pretty comfortable with the way things are and are not particularly anxious for their overturning. But both the first and second readings present eschatological hope in terms of dramatic, cosmic transformation: mountains being made low, rugged land being made plains, the heavens passing away with a might roar, and the element being dissolved by fire.

The Second Letter of Peter goes on to pose this interesting question: “Since everything is to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be?” (I couldn’t help but notice that the American lectionary omits the question mark in this sentence). Peter provides something of an answer as well: we should be “waiting for and hastening the coming day of God.”

With regard to God’s consummation of history, we both “wait” and “hasten.” Here is the paradox of all of us who live between the times. We are not in charge of history’s consummation. God is. And so our stance within history is one of waiting. But somehow, in ways that are often hidden, our anxious waiting is the means by which we hasten the kingdom. Our waiting is active, not passive. As the book of Revelation says, both the Spirit and the Bride say “Come.”

Perhaps John the Baptist, who appears in today’s Gospel, is the model of this waiting that hastens. John is hardly passive – crying out, calling people to repentance – yet his stance is entirely one of anticipation.  His hope is not grounded in his own efforts, but in “one mightier than I.”

Parents – particularly parents of teenagers – often have the seemingly conflicting desire that their children both be patient with themselves and not try to rush adulthood, and at the same time take charge of their lives and do something. Growing into adulthood takes time, but it also doesn’t happen unless we actively seek to become adults. Otherwise, we remain arrested adolescents. This is perhaps a shadowing image of God’s desires for us: both that we wait patiently for the fulfillment of the Kingdom and at the same time actively work to hasten it.

The new translation of the Missal is perhaps a good occasion for us to exercise the waiting that hastens. We certainly need to try to learn the new responses, to proclaim well the new texts, and – most importantly – to pray in these new words. But we must also be patient; these things take time. The waiting that hastens is not a comfortable place to be, but it is where we live as Christians.

The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it, and said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” ’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.’

But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, “I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it for ever.” ’ And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

There are a few of these “arguments with God” in the Bible. I have always found these stories fascinating. In the Hebrew Bible, the protagonist is a chosen friend of God, holy and righteous. When the LORD threatens destruction to human life, the protagonist protests and attempts to persuade God. The human protagonist in these stories temporarily appears to have a better grip on God’s essential character – righteous, generous, and merciful – than the LORD does!

These days, we think of a conversation with God in which the human tries to change God’s mind as at worst a descent into a pagan understanding of prayer and at best a delusion. Of course, God does not “forget” compassion and mercy as the narrative seems to imply. Yet these stories remain, somehow, compelling and true, and we read them in the liturgy.

In the Roman Catholic lectionary, year C appears to be the year of Divine Negotiation: the 16th Sunday in Ordinary time (July 21, 2013) hosts Genesis 18:20-32, the story of Abraham asking God not to destroy the innocent of Sodom together with the guilty. The 24th Sunday (Sept 15, 2013) proclaims Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14, in which Moses begs the LORD not to embarrass himself by destroying his people on account of their idolatry. The Revised Common Lectionary also includes these readings, although they are alternates from the prophetic texts suggested for these days. In addition, both lectionaries include Luke 18:1-8, the parable of the unjust judge, five weeks later (the 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time or 22nd Sunday After Pentecost, October 20, 2013).

The story of the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21-28), read on August 14 this year according to both the Roman Catholic and the Revised Common Lectionary should also be understood within this Biblical tradition:

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.

When I’ve taught this passage to undergraduates, their first reaction is shock at Jesus’ apparent callousness and narrow-mindedness. Like God in the Exodus story, Jesus is portrayed here as echoing, presumably, a common view of justice and mercy among his contemporaries. The woman’s boldness not only challenges his assumptions but the reader’s. The final reversal is then an especially striking testimony that Jesus’ ministry would eventually save not only Jews but Gentiles as well; that God’s love extends not only to “those like us” but “those we do not like.”

Do you find this passage challenging? How would you interpret it in a homily, or how would you like to hear it interpreted?

In a discussion of the Chrism Mass, Jack Rakosky suggested that the most appropriate reading would be the anointing at Bethany. This is something I have believed for many years, and it thrilled me to see his suggestion. In fact, I follow this blog in order to understand how liturgists think about the gospel and try to enact it, always with an eye to understanding the story of the anointing better.

Mary anoints the feet of Jesus. Sculpture. From Heiligenkreuz Abbey, Austria. Photo: Rita Ferrone, April 2011.

The significance of the anointing at Bethany struck me when I read Raymond Brown’s summary statement on St. Mark’s gospel:

Readers can learn much about Jesus from the traditions of his parables and mighty deeds; but unless that is intimately combined with the picture of his victory through suffering, they cannot understand him or the vocation of his followers.

The anointing at Bethany epitomizes this message, as the woman anoints Jesus at the end of his ministry of “parables and mighty deeds” and he reinterprets the anointing as for his coming burial. It is the final pivotal point as the gospel turns to the Passion. Nowhere is the suffering of Jesus more intimately connected with his life of parables and mighty deeds.

St. John, with a very different theology, also uses the anointing as the pivot of his gospel. Mary anoints Jesus as a response to the raising of her brother Lazarus, the last of the signs that make up the first half of the gospel. The anointing also prepares Jesus for his glorification in the second half. It is the anointed Jesus who is welcomed into Jerusalem; he imitates her action when He washes the feet of the disciples; and of course, Jesus dies and is buried, fulfilling that meaning of the anointing.

Despite the prominence these evangelists give to this story, exegetes rarely treat it as important. I did not expect to find it featured prominently by liturgists. But I found some glaring gaps into which this story fits easily. The Chrism Mass is celebrated two days before Easter, which parallels the anointing two days before the Passover. In the morning the bishop could preach to his priests about the anointing of Jesus, and in the evening those priests preach to their people about Jesus copying the position of the woman to wash his disciples’ feet. Rather than a Chrism Mass with a pragmatic timing and purpose, it would be part of reenacting the gospels and preparing us for the death and Resurrection of Jesus.

There is an even larger hole gaping in the sacraments.  As a prayer for healing, the anointing of the sick is a powerful sacrament, but as a reenactment of the anointing Jesus received before he suffered, it becomes a more resonant sign of the value of suffering. The oil of catechumens becomes a preparation to be buried with Christ in Baptism. By giving the Holy Chrism roots in Scripture, we take a step toward finding for Confirmation the theology many have sought. The love the woman expresses by anointing Jesus is the love we feel for our children and for those who join our Church. It is stronger than death. And by being anointed as Christ was anointed, we become a part of the Body of the Anointed, able to exercise the authority of Christ by prophetically speaking Christ’s love, by royally choosing to love, and by offering our lives as he did.

There is much more to this story than has generally been acknowledged. The ideas here but skim the surface of the issues in exegesis, the sacraments, Christology, women, etc. But even if I am wrong about everything I say, I hope that you will give greater consideration to what this woman did. Wherever in all the world the gospel is proclaimed, what she has done will be told in memory of her.

Jim McKay

Pray Tell: LitPress is launching Give Us This Day this August. What is it? A daily devotional, a pocket missal, a Mass guide, or what?

Mary Stommes: The shortest and most accurate answer is that Give Us This Day is “Daily prayer for today’s Catholic.” In some ways, it is easier to say what Give Us This Day is not—or what it is more than. It is not just a Mass guide, and it is more than a daily devotional. Each month’s issue contains the following daily content: prayers for morning and evening, Mass texts, a reflection, a Gospel witness. There is additional weekly and monthly content best described by taking a look inside the pages on our web site. Give Us This Day has the feel of a personal missal, but it is not your mother’s St. Andrew’s Missal (though I have my mother’s missal and am fond of it).

PT: I see all the Mass readings and prayers for Sunday and weekday. But I know someone who worked on the new Order of Mass chants, and they’re not included. Why not?

MS: You will have to introduce me to this Order-of-Mass-chants person. I would tell her that Give Us This Day, while including the Order of Mass and Lectionary texts for each day, is primarily for personal prayer. This is not to say it will not be used in prayer groups, etc., or that people will not use it as a Mass guide for convenience. But most readers, alas, will not be all that interested in chant. (Maybe it would be best not to tell this to the “Order-of-Mass-chants” person.)

PT: Who is Give Us This Day for? Would-be monks, hard-core Catholics, Catholics on the fringe, or who?

MS: All of the above. And more. There is a longing deep and wide for daily spiritual sustenance. We are a hungry people. We want to pray but often do so with fits and starts. We long for “substantive simplicity,” if that makes sense.  And we long for communion, with God and with each other. This deep desire, I think, is our response to God’s desires for us. Lots of words to say that Give Us This Day is for those trying day-by-day to respond to God’s love for us in Christ.

PT: Aren’t there lots of daily prayer resources out there? Surely you are asked, “Why another?”

MS: Yes. And yes. There are lots of other resources available, and people do often ask, “Why Give Us This Day?” I respond by describing daily, weekly, and monthly content. It soon becomes clear that Give Us This Day, while similar to other familiar resources, is very different. Day-by-day, people will hear a wide range of voices from our Catholic Tradition. St. Augustine and Flannery O’Connor, St. Therese of Lisieux and Fr. Michael Casey—the list is practically endless—all these voices have something important to say to us today, something that leads us into the communion we desire.

What emerges in these parts of the whole—the monthly essays and prayers, the weekly “Within the Word” feature, the daily content—is the intimate link between Scripture, liturgy, and life. Scripture and liturgy are life-giving and life-changing. They draw us in and send us out. The more voices we hear affirming and proclaiming that, the better it will be for us as a Church.

PT: One psalm at daily morning and evening prayer, I see. So that won’t count for my Office when I’m on the road, according to the old moral theology. How do you see the daily prayer being used?

MS: You will have to consult your abbot about what counts for your Office when you are on the road. But you are right to point out that Give Us This Day’s prayer in the morning and evening is not the official Liturgy of the Hours. It is intentional. We were on the road a lot this past year (you aren’t the only one on the road) doing focus group work. We heard over and again: “Keep this manageable. If it is too much, I will gradually stop using one feature. Then another. And then perhaps another—until finally I will just stop using it altogether.” Not a good result. So, psalms and Scripture in the morning and evening are brief. They are “doable” and “prayable” for the average person, as is every other feature in Give Us This Day.

PT: I heard on campus that you don’t have a Saint of the day. Is this true?

MS: I notice you capitalize Saint. If this means that we don’t have a canonized Saint of the day, then your informant was correct. But we do have a saintly witness every day (except Sundays). We call this feature “Blessed Among Us,” and it is written and edited by Robert Ellsberg. Day-by-day, readers will find inspiration in the life and words of a great cloud of witnesses: Saints John Vianney and Mary McKillop, Blesseds Solanus Casey and Mother Teresa, to be sure. But also Dorothy Day and Henri Nouwen. In response to seeing contemporary Gospel witnesses in Give Us This Day, a focus group respondent said, “I can do this too!” A pretty good outcome—to recognize who we are called to be through baptism.

PT: I grew up with “Hail, Holy Queen” after the family rosary, Stations of the Cross during Lent. Are traditional prayers and devotions pretty much out of it?

MS: I grew up with the Memorare after the rosary (and Stations of the Cross during Lent). Traditional prayers and devotions are far from “out of it.” There is something powerful in this treasury of Catholic prayers and devotions, something deeply satisfying. Each month Give Us This Day will feature a devotional or traditional prayer that fits the season, along with an accompanying reflection. It’s a feature that reflects the “personality” of Give Us This Day—the blend of old and new. (A pre-publication secret: “Hail, Holy Queen” will appear before the Memorare, but in time we will both be taken back to our family rosaries.)

PT: Okay, so your Catholic cred is good. Is this thing only for Catholics? What happened to ecumenism??

MS: Allow me an aside, which maybe is not at all an aside. I am a better Catholic, and I certainly love Scripture more, because of a dear Protestant friend. Lorraine, I think, will love Give Us This Day, and not simply because I am the editor. She will love it because it is deeply rooted in Scripture—and leads people to Jesus, Word of the Father. Having said that, Give Us This Day is distinctly Catholic: daily Mass texts from the Roman Missal and Lectionary, the Order of Mass. I think we can be distinctly Catholic without being exclusively Catholic. Readers of Give Us This Day will be primarily—but not only—Catholic.

PT: Wow, what a roster of advisors and contributors– Ron Rolheiser, Jim Martin, Kathleen Norris, Bishop Morneau, Irene Nowell, Robert Ellsberg, Timothy Radcliffe. I take it you couldn’t get the Pope. How did you get all these people?

MS: To be honest, the widespread support—not only from our editorial advisors but from hosts of other busy writers—came as a bit of a surprise to me as well. It is not, I am convinced, about us “getting them.” Rather, it is the mission and vision of Give Us This Day that draws people in. (About the Pope: we did not ask. But month-by-month we will hear from popes past and present.)

PT: I see blank pages in the layout, not a lot of ornaments or doo-dads. What’s the concept?

MS: The concept is simple: not to let anything in the way of content and design “get in the way” of prayer. Rather, it should lead the way. When people are praying the morning and evening canticles, a facing page of text can get in the way: thus the carpet pages. When we have to search to find where various elements begin each day, it becomes work: thus the ease of easily identifiable heads that begin at the top of the page. Too many words can get in the way, as can “ornaments and doo-dads”: thus the white space that lets us breathe, pause, pray. A focus group participant who spent his life in textbook publishing said at the end of the session, “My compliments to the designer. This is wonderful.” The greater compliment was yet to come when a young man, holding a prototype of Give Us This Day in his hand, said: “This falls away as I enter into prayer.” That’s the concept.

PT: 40 or 45 bucks a year. Do you think that’s that kinda pricey, or a great deal?

MS: Yes. And yes. The price for a one-year subscription is not pocket change. But I would quickly add that Give Us This Day is a pretty good deal. At the introductory price, a one-year sub comes to just over $3 a month (and a free Our Father print from the Saint John’s Bible). This amounts to about 11 cents a day, a pretty great value.

PT: Your sales department will like my last question. How do I get a sample copy? How do I subscribe?

MS: I like this question because it is the last! And it is easy to answer:

1. Go to our web site here: Give Us This Day
2. Click on “Subscribe Now!” or “Request Free Sample”

Is it really so difficult to preach on John? Maybe Cody or some other PrayTell Chrysostom will post a model homily for Christmas day to help the homilists who struggle with this text. (I’m presuming the lectionary for the Episcopal Church has the same reading as the RC for Christmas day. Is this correct?)

Yes, Rita, same readings more or less. . . I’m sure that the RCL has opened up a few more options to us, but on Christmas Day my preference is to preach on John 1. (And since I’m the only single priest in a parish whose clergy are otherwise married, guess who gets to take the morning mass while everyone else stays home and opens presents with the kids?) Actually I love it passionately: an intimate congregation, no pressure to sell the “Christmas story” to once-a-year guests (who all come for the big music at midnight), and time to dwell with the theology of the Incarnation.

So in spite of Rita’s flattery — me, a Chrysostom? — here’s my homily from the liturgy of Christmas Day last year. It was preached extempore, and transcribed some weeks after the event; and looking it over again, I seem to owe a tip of the biretta to Karl Rahner.

CHRISTMAS, MASS OF THE DAY
AND SUNDAY I IN CHRISTMASTIDE

Alleluia! Christ is born. + Glorify him. Alleluia!

“In the beginning. . . .”
How wonderfully does today’s Gospel lesson take us back —
all the way back, back to “in the beginning.”

“In the beginning,
when God created the heavens and the earth. . . .”

“In the beginning
was the Word. . . .
. . . and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . .”

“. . . and God said. . . “

God spoke,
and in that speaking,
in that wording,
by that Word,
by that all-creative Word,

the universe,
the cosmos,
the world was made:

“All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into being.”

God’s Word —
present to God, one with God —
is a creative Word,
a fashioning Word,
a life-giving Word.

“Let there be!” — and there is!
And what is, is good. . . “very good,” as we are told.

God’s first Word, God’s creative Word,
is a good Word, an affirming Word.

And when at length God’s Word speaks “us,”
God creates a “Hearer of the Word,”
and not a hearer only,
but “in the divine image God created them”:
beings, creatures, persons who could speak,
interlocutors, conversationalists,
dialogue partners, speakers of words.

But what is our first word to God?

When God tells us that we are good, “very good” indeed,
what do we do, but counter-speak — or contradict — God.

“You are good,” God says to us.
“Wanna bet?” we say to God.

Hearers of God’s good, creative word,
our response is lies, deceit, and death.

We speak
pride,
greed,
injustice,
hatred,
exclusion,
marginalization,
abuse,
violence.

We try to speak louder,
to out-speak God.
We cry, we shout, we rage:
but God will not enter our shouting-match;
God will not be outspoken,
nor ultimately contradicted.

God’s Word named us “good,”
and God’s Word is fixed in the heavens,
God’s Word endures forever.
God’s Word is a “lamp for our feet, a light for our path,”
and that “light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.”

So in the fullness of time,
that Word of God,
present to God in the beginning,
one in being with God —

the Word who was God,
spoke flesh and blood, sinew and bone:
“the Word became flesh and lived among us.”

John’s Gospel makes no mention of Luke’s Bethlehem,
tells no story of overcrowded inns,
sings no song of angels and shepherds.
It presents us with a fact,
straightforward and simple,
“the Word became flesh,”
God became human.

John does not mince words,
and we need that if we are to fathom Bethlehem;
But we need Luke, too, if we are to understand John.
For “Word becomes flesh,” God becomes human,
not in some palace, not at the heights of earthly wealth and power,
not in any of the places we might expect such an event,
but at the very point of our human vulnerability.

A barely-wed mother, and an angel-crazed stepfather,
the unsanitary muck of a stable,
and a baby who hungers and thirsts
and wets and soils his swaddling clothes.
And angels announce the tidings of this birth to sheep-keepers,
among the poorest of the poor, unclean under the Law,
society’s outcasts — the lowly of the earth.

Behold, Bethlehem!
Here in poverty, in insecurity, in vulnerability,
here, here, here the Word becomes flesh:
here is your God.

“He came to what was his own,”
a story teller, a tale spinner,
the Word of God, come to speak a message.

In vulnerability born, so vulnerable he lived,
to tell our story over, from “in the beginning,”
without contradiction,
told to those who could and would hear it aright:
those who live on the margins,
those who dwell “in the shadow of death,”
the poor and outcast of earth’s children. . .

. . . the ones “who have hears to hear.”

And so the Word spoke:

“Blessed are the poor. . . .”
“Blessed are the meek. . . .”
“Blessed are hose who hunger and thirst. . . .”
and “Blessed are the peacemakers. . . .”

“Hear, O Israel! You shall love the Lord your God —
and love your neighbor, too.”

“Who is your neighbor?”
(Most likely your mortal enemy.)

To the sinner, he spoke “forgiveness,”
and to the injured, he spoke “forgive.”
To the broken, he spoke “healing,”
and to the warring he spoke “peace.”
To those excluded by the strictures of the law,
the Word spoke “clean”—
“reconciliation” and “inclusion,”
“community” and “home.”

“To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation;
to prisoners, freedom; to the sorrowful, joy.”

“Let your light shine,” he said,
and “Lazarus, come out.”

“I am the resurrection. . .
the Way, the Truth, the Life.”

“I give you a new Commandment:
Love one another.”

Mercy
peace
reconciliation
forgiveness
justice
inclusion
love.

Love one another.

“Yet the world did not know him. . .
and his own people did not accept him.”

The Word spoke Truth to Power,
and power contradicted him. . .
with words that hurt —
exclusion; marginalization; injustice; abuse —
and words meant to kill —
terror; violence. . . crucify!

Like the Word speaking in the vulnerability of Bethlehem,
the creative Word of God spoke from the vulnerability of the cross.
The Word became flesh to speak to human need,
to human brokenness,
to every point of weakness, and danger, and threat,
to tell again our story, speaking it anew
from cradle to grave.

And so his final words, his parting words,

“Father, forgive them. . . “
“Today you will be with me in paradise. . . .”
“Behold, your Son. . . Behold, your mother. . . .”
“Into Your hands I commend my spirit. . . .”
“It is finished. . . . “

And the Word-become-flesh,
the vulnerable Word,
became the Word-become-silence.

But God will not be outspoken,
nor ultimately contradicted.

“The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.”

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so is my Word
that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

As in the beginning,
when God’s Word spoke heaven and earth,
and all that dwell therein,
God’s Word sounded forth anew,
a final Word, a definitive Word.

“Life,” he spoke,
and it was so.
“Resurrection,”
and it came to be.

And it was good.

These words of the Word echo through time and eternity,
and like that first naming — “good” — they will not be retracted,
cannot ever be taken back.

“The Word became flesh and lived among us,”
and “to all who received him,
who believed in his name,
he gave power to become children of God.”

The Risen Word speaks a new creation,
the Risen Word makes us “words-within-the-Word.”
“Be Hearers of the Word,” he tells us,
“but not hearers only.”

“Go,” he says;
“Go,” his new word spoken to us.
“Go, speak truth in the places of power,
go, speak love in the places of hate,
speak healing in the places of brokenness,
speak inclusion on the margins of society, world, even church.”

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory. . .”
. . . and lived to tell about it. . .
. . . and will never be the same again. . .

And so, his Word becomes our word:

Mercy
Peace
Reconciliation
Forgiveness
Truth
Justice
Compassion
Inclusion
Hope
Love
Home

Good!

Amen.

If you went to Mass the evening of August 14, what euchology was used, what lectionary readings?

Tell us, monks and nuns, what does your monastery do about celebrating vigil Masses? What, pray tell, does your monastery do on the typical December 24–25? A Mass of the 24th? A Vigil Mass? A Midnight Mass? A Dawn Mass? A Day Mass? Are any of these combined with the Liturgy of the Hours?

Preparing liturgy is one of the most important tasks of everyone involved, presider, ministers, and assembly. Whatever mechanism for preparing liturgy a parish chooses (committee, advisory board, or the like), it needs to pay great attention to the rules of good communication and good liturgy. Three times between Paragraph 119 and Paragraph 122, Sing to the Lord cites GIRM 111, so it would be good to consult the entire text:

“111. Among all who are involved with regard to the rites, pastoral aspects, and music there should be harmony and diligence in the effective preparation of each liturgical celebration in accord with the Missal and other liturgical books. This should take place under the direction of the rector of the church and after the consultation with the faithful about things that directly pertain to them. The priest who presides at the celebration, however, always retains the right of arranging those things that are his own responsibility.” [my emphasis]

Note that the entire last sentence of 111 is new to this edition of the GIRM.

SttL 119 also quotes from a very important passage of the GIRM:

“352. The pastoral effectiveness of a celebration will be greatly increased if the texts of the readings, the prayers, and the liturgical songs correspond as closely as possible to the needs, spiritual preparation, and culture of those taking part. This is achieved by appropriate use of the wide options described below.

“The priest, therefore, in planning the celebration of Mass, should have in mind the common spiritual good of the people of God, rather than his own inclinations. He should, moreover, remember that the selection of different parts is to be made in agreement with those who have some role in the celebration, including the faithful, in regard to the parts that more directly pertain to each.

“Since, indeed, a variety of options is provided for the different parts of the Mass, it is necessary for the deacon, the lectors, the psalmist, the cantor, the commentator, and the choir to be completely sure before the celebration which text for which each is responsible is to be used and that nothing be improvised. Harmonious planning and carrying out of the rites will great assistance in disposing the faithful to participate in the Eucharist.”

This passage is echoed in the last paragraph of the GIRM that pertains to parishes:

“385. In the arranging and choosing of the variable parts of the Mass for the Dead, especially the Funeral Mass (e.g., orations, readings, Prayer of the Faithful), pastoral considerations bearing upon the deceased, the family, and those attending should rightly be taken into account. Pastors should, moreover, take into special account those who are present at a liturgical celebration or who hear the Gospel on the occasion of the funeral and who may be non-Catholics or Catholics who never or rarely participate in the Eucharist or who seem even to have lost the faith. For priests are ministers of Christ’s Gospel for all.” [my emphasis]

These last two sentences are an instance of the greatest principle in Canon Law: Salus animarum suprema lex, found in the last canon of the Code, Canon 1752: “ . . . and the salvation of souls, which must always be the supreme law in the Church, is to be kept before one’s eyes.”