Save the Feasts, Save the Catholic Culture

Corpus Christi Procession; Rathdrum, ID | Link

Father Acervo is a wonderful priest. I miss him dearly, and I know his current parish of Our Lady of Good Counsel will miss him when he moves this summer to Saint Joan of Arc. The reason he I admire him is that he is willing to examine the issues that plague our Catholic Faith in today's culture, and addresses them with critical analysis and a hopeful desire to correct them.

Most recently he has posted about Catholic Feasts, and the fact that in recent years the faithful and many clergy, no longer celebrate them in any meaningful way. This has lead to a degradation in their importance, and have diluted the faith which surrounds itself by them. He sees the problem simply:

Let’s face it. Catholic culture is all but dead in many places especially in the Western World. Yes, it’s largely because most Catholics don’t know their faith anymore, but also because we’ve simply stopped being Catholic. We’ve stopped doing Catholic things.

He is right. In fact, not only have we stopped doing Catholic things, but we have also stopped believing Catholic things. I really think these two go hand-in-hand in many ways. This isn't just the fault of the Catholic faithful, but the clergy as well. Parishes and priests don't celebrate the feasts or devotions that make up the the seasonal flavor of the Church. Instead, these things have been relegated to a by-gone era or they are seen as personal devotions. Fr. Acervo explains:

We can see then what feasts have to do with Catholic culture. Catholics for the most part don’t celebrate festivals anymore. Go to most parishes and liturgical feast days go by with very little notice, if any. A feast day is celebrated with ordinary vestments, ordinary music (if at all), and little to no change in decoration around the altar and sanctuary.

Devotions, blessings, and processions related to feasts have all but disappeared. There are too few places that have Corpus Christi processions (thankfully, this is something that Archbishop Vigneron has restored in the archdiocese). The Roman Ritual contains blessings for many of the Church’s feast days. Most of these blessings no longer appear in the more recent Book of Blessings.

This is very true of my experience here in Alaska. While a few priests attempt to keep things such as Corpus Christi, Divine Mercy, and May Crowning alive, it is very likely that some other priests lets such things go by without so much as a mention. When asked about these "devotions" their non-observance is explained off by saying that they are "private devotions" and are therefore not part of the celebration of the parish itself – and evidently not by the priest. (This was the case this year during both May Crowning and Divine Mercy Sunday.

Now I can understand certain things being private devotions - but such communal things such as the May Crowning, Divine Mercy and Corpus Christi are liturgical events that occur in the year of the Church. I think Father Acervo is right when he says:

If the Church is going to recover her identity, and if Catholic culture is going to be saved, our feasts must be celebrated and restored of their meaning both in our parishes and in our families.

Read his entire post: Recovering Our Feasts

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