The proud in their conceit

Icon of Our Mother of Good Counsel in Castelgandolfo

It was odd to be in Rome, literally within the walls of the Vatican City State, when the report detailing the horrific sins of the Church, her priests and her bishops, in Pennsylvania was released last week. This morning, a letter from Pope Francis on the sexual abuse crisis, addressed to the People of God, appeared. In it he quotes the Magnificat, the Gospel canticle to be proclaimed each evening by those obliged to celebrate the Liturgy of the Hours:

"For the Lord remembers the promise he made to our fathers: 'he has scattered the proud in their conceit; he has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty' (Lk 1:51-53). We feel shame when we realize that our style of life has denied, and continues to deny, the words we recite."

Evening Prayer is one of the two hinges of the Hours (morning prayer is the other), this is a Gospel that should be in the mouth of every ordained Catholic priest, deacon and bishop in the world every day. Underneath Pope Francis' words, I could hear the old Latin saw I learned in theology, "lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi" — the way of prayer is the way of belief is the way of life, or more literally, the law of prayer is the law of belief is the law by which we live.

Each time I pray the evening Office, I feel measured against those words.  Where have I been proud, what are my conceits?  Where have I lifted up the lowly or been sent away empty? Where have I grasped, rather than opened, my hands?  Is what I pray what I believe, how I live?

Pope Francis blames clericalism, and I don't doubt that is one root of the abuse crisis. But perhaps it is as much that we have failed to teach those in authority to pray these Hours, not as an obligation, but as a gauge, a measure of mercy and of justice.