What we think is the right road
We must learn and appreciate the words of our day, which define reality for us and point to the challenges we face: democracy, diversity, equality, inclusivity, marginalization, misogyny, racism, sexism, homophobia, imperialism, colonialism, progressivism, autonomy and many others.
But it’s the wrong road
These 13 words constitute the list of cant (meaning “hypocritical and sanctimonious talk”) suggested by Anthony Esolen, now of the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire. Professor Esolen dismisses these words as “simply terms of political force.” They have, he says, “no real meaning anymore.”
“The cant,” he writes, “is everywhere – on television, … in your school (very little else is in your school), in many a pulpit (alas), and on the lips of almost everybody you will meet.” The parentheticals, by the way, are his. Because we have substituted self, sex and the state for God, he argues, lies rush in “to fill up the void left by truth in retreat.” That is one reason St. John Paul II told us that “we need now more than ever to have the courage to look truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name” (“Evangelium Vitae,” 58). Abortion, for example, is murder, not “termination of pregnancy.”
The language we use matters greatly. George Orwell taught us that in an essay which used to be mandatory reading in good schools – “Politics and the English Language”– in which he wrote, “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.” Orwell died in 1950. Imagine what he would think of our depraved language today.
But isn’t “church vocabulary” removed from the acrimonious language debate swirling around us? Here are 10 terms. See what you think.
- “the box”: No, it’s the tabernacle. It has a red candle glowing in front of it because it houses the Blessed Sacrament.
- “the cup”: No, it’s a chalice which, after the consecration, holds the Precious Blood.
- “christen a child”: No, you do that to a ship. People are baptized.
- “cross yourself”: We do make the Sign of the Cross but, traditionally, in making it, we are blessing ourselves.
- “faith community”: Is there something wrong with “church”? Is a restaurant an “eating community”?
- he (referring to God): this is not to raise here the issue of “gender-inclusive” language; it is, rather, to point out that He and His should be capitalized when referring to Almighty God or to Our Lord.
- The Lord: All right, of course; but customary Catholic language refers to Our Lord. “Our Father, who art in heaven” is not “The Father, who art in heaven.”
- Our Church: No, it’s the Church, not our Church. Of course, we can logically refer to our parish and, thus, to our Church. But be careful: The Church belongs to Our Lord, not to us. If it were ours, we could really mess it up, couldn’t we?
- Services: No, holy Masses (except on Good Friday).
- (After consecration) the wine: No, the Precious Blood.
There are many other terms we often use which smack of the ordinary or prosaic. We have a tendency toward familiarity, toward making profane what is sacred, toward treating the supernatural and divine as commonplace or mediocre. It’s a form of blasphemy.
Watch people enter a Catholic church. Many correctly genuflect in front of the tabernacle – Where God is – and maintain respectful and prayerful silence.
Others, though, casually stroll in, immediately sit in a pew, and begin to look around to see if they can converse with others. They think, what else is there to do, after all?
Consider the priest or deacon: he wears a white dress, tied by a rope, with a big cloth over his shoulders, and wears a “thing” over it all. The “white dress” is an alb, a linen vestment that is blessed before being worn and symbolizes the purity of the soul with which the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass should be offered. The rope or belt is a cincture, blessed before use, symbolizing spiritual watchfulness (see 1 Pt 1:13-15). The “sash” over the shoulder (for a deacon) or around the neck (for a priest) is a stole, kissed by the priest or deacon before use, symbolizing the offices to which priests and deacons are ordained.
The outer garment is the chasuble (for priests) or the dalmatic (for deacons). The chasuble symbolizes charity and the yoke of Christ (see Col 3:14; Mt 11:30).
When sacred hymns become mere popular songs; when homilies become mere entertainment; when the Blessed Sacrament becomes a mere wafer; when Mass becomes a mere social occasion and a “celebration of our community” – we have desacralized what we should most cherish and revere.
If it’s too optimistic to expect that we may eliminate the cant from our socio-political lives today, we can and should call sacred matters by sacred names.
Deacon James H. Toner serves at Our Lady of Grace Church in Greensboro.