I grew up in suburban Philadelphia, and as a kid in Catholic school Eucharistic adoration was a regular feature of our observance of the liturgical year, especially during Lent. As a practice, adoration has deep historical roots in the church in Philadelphia, roots that extend at least as far back as St. John Neumann, the city's fourth Catholic bishop. It was he who instituted the practice of Forty Hours' devotion across the diocese. Only after leaving the Philadelphia area did I realize that this pious devotion is, well, somewhat rare in other parts. (No doubt such "old school" practices are the basis of a joke I've heard: What's the time difference between New York and Philadelphia? When it's 9:00 in New York, it's 1949 in Philadelphia.)
Since elementary school, I can't say that adoration has played a huge role in my prayer life. This has not been true for a number of my friends, however. Some who live in New York City (and elsewhere) have become involved with Catholic Underground, a ministry of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and find it very helpful for their spiritual lives. Catholic Underground combines private prayer during adoration with communal prayer, followed by a showcase of Catholic art and artists. Even without the formal organization of Catholic Underground, other friends have spoken of visiting chapels and churches that offer "perpetual adoration," and say that it is consoling to be able to spend time in places marked out as sacred. These people are not zealots, holy rollers or would-be monks and nuns. They are ordinary people who find adoration helpful in their spiritual journey.
So I was surprised to read this news blurb over at the Christian Century, responding to a prominent conference on Eucharistic adoration that took place this June in Rome. In it, Notre Dame theologian Rev. Richard McBrien says that adoration should be "tolerated but not encouraged." Noting the historical origins of the practice -- as a Counter-Reformation response to challenges about the Real Presence -- McBrien points out that some liturgists see it as "a step back to the Middle Ages." In his view, adoration "erodes the communal aspect" of the Mass, and "erodes the fact that the Eucharist is a meal." Adoration misses the point that "Holy Communion is something to be eaten, not adored."
It strikes me that the "tolerate but do not encourage" idea is a bit harsh and also counterintuitive, especially since McBrien acknowledges that some find the practice "spiritually enriching." To return to the example of Catholic Underground, many of its participants are young adults -- a demographic not exactly taking churches by storm otherwise. There also seems little risk that adoration of the Eucharist will "erode" the community formed at Mass, since it often takes place in a communal setting. This is to say nothing of the fact that the overlap between adoration-goers and Mass-goers is presumably pretty high.
There are indeed legitimate concerns surrounding adoraton -- I just don't think McBrien's getting at them in his comments above. It would be problematic if adoration were somehow being used to substitute for the Mass or were viewed as a remedy for a perceived general "unworthiness" to receive Communion. Likewise troublesome would be if individuals seek to use adoration as a litmus test, where one's views on adoration are a proxy for one's fidelity to the faith. Objections would also be warranted if individual proponents of the practice advocate the view that adoration is somehow the only form of valid personal prayer. In addition to being troublesome, this is also plainly false.
But barring these kinds of problems and distortions -- none of which are alleged to be particularly widespread in the article or elsewhere -- the "tolerate but not encourage" standard seems misguided. We should be encouraging people to pray, not just "tolerating" it.
In college at Georgetown (I'm 29 now; graduated May 2005), I very much enjoyed adoration; it was the first time I'd ever really done it, and I loved it. So, I'm one of those young people.
With regard to that joke about it still being 1949 in Philly, I suppose that for Fr. McBrien on this issue it's still 1970.
McBrien. Is. Wrong. (Flat out.)
And I write that as an adamant liturgical progressive. Devotions complement the liturgy, and the liturgy cannot sustain the burdens that replacing devotions would place on it. To attack, denigrate or marginalize public devotional prayer is to do likewise to an important nutrient that feeds social action.
The jealously against devotions needs to be roundly rejected, O'Brien's salutary cautions being kept in mind. This jealously is a millstone around the neck of progressive liturgists.
I now belong to 2 Contemplative Prayer goups: one is at a Church parish and organized around a communal program of enrichment - usually a tape or DVD of teaching from a contemplative prayer teacher. This group is large (25-50 people attend) and tends to be liberal.
The other meets on the altar of a local retreat monastery. This group is small (4-5 people), very quiet and devout. I barely know the other participants on a superficial level, but feel very bonded to them, spiritually.
I recognize (and need myself) a sense of the sacred in my life. Sacred place and sacred time set aside for prayer.
But I get what Fr. McBrien is saying here. Adoration of the Eucharist, in the sense of adoring a piece of bread, is wrong theology. It takes Eucharist out of the relational into the realm of object.
I agree with Fr. McBrien. There are plenty of ways to find sacred places and sacred times in life without having to distort the meaning of the Eucharist.
Why does there have to be competition between Adoration and Communion? It would seem as if they should, can, and do reinforce each other. To appropriate a more liberal-soundin line, perhaps instead of theoretical argument against it, we should look to the lived experience of those Catholics who participate in Adoration?
Having been involved in Adoration for many years (the 1980s and early 90s, I'd say that those who were involved at that time were seeking a sacred place and time. My time in the early mornings at the Adoration chapel were indeed peaceful and conducive to prayer. I'd say that there was a heightened sense of the presence of God, which I probably attributed to the nearness of the Blessed Sacrament.
But I have to admit that there was also an element of "superstition" associated with this early morning prayer practice. Something overly pious and hokey and remote from my "real" life. In retrospect, I look back and wonder what I was trying to prove - (that I was holy???) - but that may just be idiosyncratic to me.
I moved on to the practice of contemplative prayer, which feels a lot healthier and more integral to my life with others in the world. When we do contemplative prayer on the altar, we are near to the Blessed Sacrament, but we don't "adore" it.
I personally don't know anyone who is still doing Adoration. Like you, I would like to hear about their lived experience.
But, I suppose some people find this way of practicing silence to be beneficial. But, it is not likely to be anymore beneficial than other forms of silent prayer. God is with us always and everywhere, not just in a consecrated host. I have found that some (not making a blanket judgment, but reporting observations) of those most attached to practices like adoration, Divine Mercy Sunday, the nine First Fridays (yes, that's coming back too) novenas, etc, - practices often connected to indulgences- are very pious and a bit superstitious and often not really very spiritual. They think that if they DO all the ''right'' things, they can earn their points (indulgences) and be guaranteed salvation. They seem to miss that all is gift - we can't earn anything - God is love, God gifts us with love, with grace, with presence - silent prayer (including adoration I assume) can open us to receiving that which has been there all along, And once we are open, then it works on us, and then our actions may also be transformed. We will never be worthy of all these gifts no matter how many pious practices we adopt - we can never earn these gifts of incalculable value - what we can be is accepting and humbly grateful for these unearned gifts.
Good thing we have paragons of enlightenment like Richard McBrien to protect us from such backwardness. Of course, there is the little problem that McBrien's beliefs have not inspired the creation of anything remotely as beautiful or profound as what rank superstition inspired, but we musn't let that fact deter the march of progress.
Pope Paul VI himself, as Vatican II was concluding, issued an encyclical letter that treats the issue of Eucharistic devotion, both within and outside of Mass (nos. 56 & 57 in particular touch on it).
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_03091965_mysterium_en.html
For a Catholic theologian in our era to assert that it's not theologically valid to encourage veneration of the Blessed Sacrament would be to spit in the wind. I am sure it's been tried, but it's a fool's errand.
I agree that more traditionally-minded Catholics should not use Adoration as a litmus test of people's orthodoxy. But neither should progressively-minded Catholics use it as a litmus test of people's heterodoxy. It's just another way to pray. Plain and simple.
Thanks for the link. While Mozart had difficulties with the hierarchy of his day, especially his first employer, the Archbishop of Salzburg, there is no doubt, listening to his ''Ave Verum Corpus,'' that he believed every word that he set to music. And one is tempted to add, listening to that sublime piece, that God believes it, too.
But Mozart also said something relevant to this debate. In one of his letters, he wrote that he could never live in a Protestant country because only Catholics could understand the emotion he put into the Masses he composed, especially the Agnus Dei. He viewed contemporary Protestantism as coldly rationalistic. The same critique can be offered of McBrien. He views Eucharistic Adoration as conflicting with one of his ideas, failing to consider the strong emotional pull it has for many Catholics. Eucharistic Adoration ''works,'' just as lighting votive candles before saints' statues ''work,'' as anyone who has ever visited churches in secular Europe and seen all the lighted votive candles can attest. Suppressing such practices because they conflict with some intellectual's ideas is foolish, and such suppression leads, at best, to the coldly rationalistic faith Mozart decried.
I am another one of them liberal/progressively minded Catholics (check out some of my other postings if you don't believe me) who finds enormous value in Eucharistic Adoration. One of the main reasons I remain Catholic is the physicality of our faith, the Sacraments and the sacramentals. I worship God as a Catholic because the Sacraments and sacramentals give me something I can touch, taste, and feel, to engage my physical senses in the supernatural worship of God. I know, I know...blessed are they who have not seen but believe. There's a reason I was named after the Doubting Apostle I guess.
I've heard it quoted before that "If it's just bread, why bother?" or something in that vein; I'm not sure to whom the quote can be attributed. I agree...if it were only a meal, who would sit in front of it in prayer? But as Catholics, we believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. If that is the case, if Jesus remains under the accident of the Bread, the question for me becomes, "Why WOULDN'T we pray in front of it? How COULDN'T we pray in front of it?"
Thomas - liberal, progressive AND scapular-wearing, Eucharist-adoring Catholic.
Great post. You might enjoy Flannery O'Connor's famous reply to someone arguing that the Eucharist was just bread: http://flanneryoconnor.blogspot.com/2004/06/paul-greenberg-on-famous-to-hell-with.html
(Incidentally, I highly recommend reading O'Connor's published correspondence, from which this reply is taken. Her letters are an outstanding introduction to Catholicism).
I think that it has also been used as a strong point of "distinctive Catholicism" to emphasize our didfference from those who see Communion as "symbol."
Insofar as it distances us from community as a soutce of pride, obviously that's a problem.
For I think McBrien, in noting that the history of the practice came originally when communion was quite infrequent, does not want the message of the central meaning of the sacrament to be dominished.
What;s sad is that this should just be another controversy in the community of eucharistic believers.
I wonder if it would be worth asking Fr. O'Brien to join the conversation here. Perhaps he could expand on his comments at The Christian Century and tell us why he thinks it should be only tolerated. And perhaps he could respond to the people who have posted about their positive experiences in Adoration. I, for one, am really interested in what he might have to say.
Paul Paul VI rejected McBrien's dichotomization between the meal vs adoration dimensions of Eucharist. It's both/and, not either/or....
McBrien posits a false problem, and seems well armed with rationalization to dress it up. He may have his private opinion and rationalize a position vis vis Paul VI and what his teaching synthesized , but it's not worth much on this point, except as a nodding head of the usual commentariat suspects called by journalists to provide balancing viewpoints.
I think Fr. O'Brien's concern is with a return to a passive laity that is increasingly marginalized by recent liturgical changes. He has a good point. For the record, he is a well-established theologian who provides a careful analysis. Please don't make him out as a marginal figure and a crank.
Pope Benedict XVI stongly encourages Eucharistic Adoration: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20070222_sacramentum-caritatis_en.html
The relevant paragraphs are 66, 67, and 68.
The reason PPVI didn't spend much time on it is because it would not have occurred to Catholics in 1965 that Eucharistic adoration would be a problem. He's certainly not seeing it as in tension with the conciliar reforms.
McBrien's concern as you state it is not well addressed by denigrating Eucharistic adoration as such. He may be well respected, but even well respected theologians mistate and overstate their cases. Such as here. This does not help the concern as you outline it.
PS: A reminder. I am a liturgical progressive. I champion the postconciliar reform. But McBrien's view on this matter is not properly viewed as part of that reform as such, and I am frankly concern it is a bad distraction from supporting the reform that still needs to be supported.
Just to be clear, Fr. O'Brien isn't providing the "distraction"-he was weighing in on the possible pitfalls of how increased EA might take away from the centrality of the Eucharist. In championing the Eucharist I suspect he was focusing on Vatican II's CONSTITUTION ON THE SACRED LITURGY which, as we all know, held the Liturgy to be "the summit & source" of the life of the Church. EA doesn't approach this status but some Catholics in the pre-Vatican Church treated it as if it did.
Just as EA developed within a certain medieval context so too does it exist today within a context, i.e., it's "valid" of course (please, no more citations of recent popes approving of EA)- but how does it work in practice, alongside the Mass and the laity understanding and relationship to the sacraments?
First of all, I find repulsive the kind of tier system that this seems to encourage - those who aren't "worthy" to take communion, should just go and stare at it instead.
Someone asked ... "if Jesus remains under the accident of the Bread, the question for me becomes, "Why WOULDN'T we pray in front of it? How COULDN'T we pray in front of it?" "
I think adoring Jesus in the form of a wafer is weirdly reductive. Seeing him as physically present yet not intentionally present leaves out everything about him that makes him him - what he preached, what he did, and any chance of interaction. It puts God in a box and objectifies him in a way that I worry allows people to believe that through devotions they can control their level of holiness.
No, his argument is a distraction itself. If instead he said it should be "encouraged, rather than merely tolerated, with a view towards its essential connection to the Eucharistic Liturgy", it would not be a distraction.
But McBrien* preferred to be pithily provocative and dismissive - and that's a distraction. He's not serving Sacrosanctum Concilium well in that. Just because I may agree with him on many things doesn't mean I am going to applaud his doing so in this context. I have as little regard to progressive shibboleth-making as I do with traddie shibboleth-making: that is to say, absolutely none.
* PS: O'Brien is the author of the column, whose concerns I share.
I'll step back at this point since I don't think we're addressing the substantial points.
I can find no THEOLOGIAN who refutes McBrien's explanation of the mystery of the Eucharist and why Eucharistic Adoration practice could distort the meaning of that mystery.
Good theology is why I am Catholic. I want a road and a way that will lead me to fuller truth and freedom in my life, greater realization of the mystery of God and my participation in that mystery. I do not want to get stuck in practices that lead me toward superstition or false piety or ever more ego. I need good theology.
All this nonsense about McBrien being too provocative and distractive is attacking the messenger, not the message.