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Views from the Choir Loft

Mother Angelica, How Bad Was It?

Jeff Ostrowski · March 29, 2016

628 Mother Angelica OTHER ANGELICA of EWTN has passed away, and an astounding number of people—from quarters I’d never expect—have been praising her life and accomplishments. This has infuriated the so-called “progressive” liturgists, to whom she was an enemy. They do not like to see her virtues praised, and many are using the internet to demean her with vile comments. 1

I am too young to remember Mother Angelica, but I do have vague memories of my mother watching her on television. She took exception to a document written by Roger Cardinal Mahony in 1997.

So how bad was this document? Did Mother Angelica overreact?

Here are some excerpts: 2

THE PRESIDER RESPECTS SYMBOL.  What we do at liturgy takes us beyond the literalness that dominates our lives. To preside, a person must live from the rich ambiguity of symbolic reality.

Respect for the power of symbol does not come easily. Even in the Church, we are afraid of symbol. We want the facts, the dimensions. We want a literal truth, but the literal can never be “the way and the truth and the life.” Symbols get beneath the surfaces and are true and real. The symbols we live by are large, ambiguous, and always engaging us anew. One who would preside at liturgy must be practiced in reverence for the symbolic reality of the deeds done by the Church at liturgy. […] Is that Baptismal font a pool of water, a womb, or a tomb? Is this a marriage bath, or a funeral bath, or a birth bath?  It is all!

Doing their symbols, Christians form Christians. […] A priest may know the Bible from a scholarly perspective, but still need to discover how it sounds and what it means when its words are spoken powerfully in the midst of the Church and attended to by an assembly.

When people ask if she went too far, I suppose the only logical answer would be: “It’s not about whether Mother Angelica’s reaction was disproportionate. It’s about living deeply from the vibrant realities of ambiguities beneath the surface of our bird bath.”

P.S.

Even though I never watched Mother Angelica, the excerpts I have seen [01 02] were spectacular! Moreover, EWTN was one of the networks which broadcast our documentary on Sacred music.

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine…



NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   Mother Angelica seems to evoke strong emotions. I remember an Irish bishop who wouldn’t even mention her name, instead referring to her as “the nun on television.”

2   I posted some reflections on that 1997 document here.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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Jeff Ostrowski

About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Los Angeles.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

19 January 2021 • Confusion over feasts

For several months, we have discussed the complicated history of the various Christmas feasts: the Baptism of the Lord, the feast of the Holy Family, the Epiphany, and so forth. During a discussion, someone questioned my assertion that in some places Christmas had been part of the Epiphany. As time went on, of course, the Epiphany came to represent only three “manifestations” (Magi, Cana, Baptism), but this is not something rigid. For example, if you look at this “Capital E” from the feast of the Epiphany circa 1350AD, you can see it portrays not three mysteries but four—including PHAGIPHANIA when Our Lord fed the 5,000. In any event, anyone who wants proof the Epiphany used to include Christmas can read this passage from Dom Prosper Guéranger.

—Jeff Ostrowski
6 January 2021 • Anglicans on Plainsong

A book published by Anglicans in 1965 has this to say about Abbat Pothier’s Editio Vaticana, the musical edition reproduced by books such as the LIBER USUALIS (Solesmes Abbey): “No performing edition of the music of the Eucharistic Psalmody can afford to ignore the evidence of the current official edition of the Latin Graduale, which is no mere reproduction of a local or partial tradition, but a CENTO resulting from an extended study and comparison of a host of manuscripts gathered from many places. Thus the musical text of the Graduale possesses a measure of authority which cannot lightly be disregarded.” They are absolutely correct.

—Jeff Ostrowski
2 January 2021 • Temptation

When I see idiotic statements made on the internet, I go nuts. When I see heretics promoted by people who should know better, I get angry. Learning to ignore such items is difficult—very difficult. I try to remember the words of Fr. Valentine Young: “Do what God places in front of you each day.” When I am honest, I don’t believe God wants me to dwell on errors and idiocy; there’s nothing I can do about that. During 2021, I will strive to do a better job following the advice of Fr. Valentine.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose thoughts and desires are law. On the contrary: the Pope’s ministry is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and to his Word. He must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.”

— ‘His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI (11 May 2005)’

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