I am a Little Catholic (Just!)

This hymn is a statement of faith in the Roman Catholic church, and appears to be the basis for the more-widely-used 19th century hymn, I am a Faithful Catholic.

But the song is not widely used, in its original form at least.  And is there more cleverness than you think going on?

The original publication

The earliest-located instance of this song is in Easy Hymns and Sacred Songs for Young Children, Burns & Lambert, London England in 1853, credited to the semi-anonymous Sister M. B of the Sisters of Mercy convent in Charlville, County Cork, Ireland  (source).

In this book the words are given as:

1. I am a little Catholic, and Christian is my name;
And I believe the Holy Church in ev’ry age the same.

2. The holy ancient Roman Church, enduring firmly still;
Where Christ her King hath planted her, upon St. Peter's hill.

3 Jerusalem she is above, our city and our home;
But after that same pattern is the holy city, Rome.

4. Time writes no wrinkles on thy brow, for thou art ever young;
Hail! Rome, eternal citadel, from whence our faith hath sprung!

5. Once England was the fairest gem in all St. Peter's crown.
O may it soon there shine again, as once of yore it shone.

Look at these words with a critical eye:  

• An Irish person, even in the mid 1800s, did not write verse five.   Unless they were part of a wry comment about people who were "a little Catholic" - as in not particularly so, and not even named after a saint.
  
  
• This is published in a book of hymn and songs that are easy for young children to sing.   Does any part of verses 2-4 look even vaguely singable by young children?

Further publications

Only ten years later, the first verse and the ideal behind the hymn have crossed the Atlantic, and the hymn is printed - with a totally different set of words - in  The Complete Sodality Manual and Hymn Book, published by D. & J. Sadlier & Co., New York, USA in 1863.   

It's easy to see this version as a hymn easily sung by young children, and used in catechesis.

I am a little Catholic, and Christian is my name;
And I believe the Holy Church in ev’ry age the same.

I love her altars where I kneel, My Jesus to adore;
I love my Mother Mary dear O, may I love her more.

I love the saints of olden time, the places where they dwelt;
I love to pray where saints have prayed, and kneel where they have knelt.

I love the priests, my pastors dear, they have left all for me;
Next to my parents here on earth, I love them tenderly.

I love the Holy Sacraments, they bring me near to God;
The Church points out the way to heav’n. These help me on the road.

I am a little Catholic, I love my Holy Faith;
I will be true to Holy Church and steadfast until death.

What happened?

It's difficult to be sure, without looking at far more historical sources that I have.  

But one option is that the artful cleverness of an Irish religious sister totally pranked an English editor, and caused him to print a hymn totally unsuited to his purpose.   While sharing a totally different version with more friendly publishers elsewhere.

Another is that the editor attributed the work of an English writer to this sister, in an attempt to make his ideas more palatable.   (Imagine his disappointment when this totally backfired when the idea was used to create a charming song for children!)

Thoughts?

Different lectionaries in England and Ireland (not Eire!)

 A working church-musician, who has made a much-appreciated contribution to making simple, sing-able psalm settings available in the English-speaking world, recently had an article in the Tablet.

She'd just discovered that Catholic Mass-readings in England, Scotland and Wales will be from a different translation of the Bible, from the start of Advent 2024 - ie this December.    

From what I can see, Cathedral, "big-church" and professional musicians know about this change.  But maybe the English bishops haven't done a great job telling people smaller-church musicians, ie the ones found in must parishes.

It's a good article, getting to the point but not over simplifying.   But I had two big reactions to it.

1) You won’t be able to use the same settings for England and Wales and Ireland any more

The Irish bishops decided in 2021 to move to a lectionary based on the Revised New Jerusalem Bible (RNJB) – source:   https://www.irishcatholic.com/new-lectionary-translation-raises-practical-concerns/

There has been no public progress on this (that an ordinary-lay-person can see!)  or even approval from the Vatican yet.   But a July 2023 news article stated that the Irish bishops plan to work with Australia and New Zealand (https://www.irishcatholic.com/irish-bisho.ps-stick-to-their-guns-as-uk-gets-new-lectionary ).

That makes me think it’s very likely that England and Wales, and the island-of-Ireland will have different texts.

2) The “Eire” word raises people's ire

The article refers to “UK and Eire, the US, Canada, and Australia/New Zealand”.

Firstly, there’s a spelling issue.  It’s Éire, not Eire.    Small dash, big difference.

And a meaning issue:  Éire is the Irish-language word for a country commonly called Ireland, more-formally the Republic of Ireland.  But Catholic bishops aren’t organised on a country basis.  In particular, the Irish Catholic bishops includes have people leading dioceses that cover two different countries, viz Ireland and Northern Ireland.  Eire, or even Éire, just doesn’t describe them.

Secondly, the article is in English.  It’s very odd to have one sentence that use an Irish-language word for Ireland, but not the Welch language word for Wales () or the Māori language word (Aotearoa) for New Zealand.   And I’m certain that if the author was writing in English and referring to certain countries in Europe, they would not be called Espana, Italia, Deutschland, etc

Language is powerful, and extremely political.  Colonial thinking isn't a good fit with Catholicism.

Catholic hymns for Coronation Sunday

 No, not the 1952 coronation, this one, in 2023. 

In real life, I never choose music for public prayer based on political considerations:  a congregation will have people from all sorts of persuasions, eg tomorrow I will be worshiping alongside a Polish women who loves the English royal family. 

But this is a list of what I'd love to choose.   Of course it starts with the readings, influenced by events in the world.

Readings / Main ideas

Acts 6: 1-7  - The apostles asked the community to set up the first parish council!  

Psalm: 32 - May your love be upon us O Lord as we place all our hope in you 

I Peter 2: 4-9 -  the cornerstone - you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation - out of darkness into - light.

John 14: 1-12 -  "I am going now to prepare a place for you"  - whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself 

My summary for the day: 

Jesus the Way, the Truth and the Life - the call to a life of service.

Mass setting

Is there a Mass of Christ the King?  Yes here:   https://www.ilpmusic.org/category/SAHMassCTK.html

I don't know any of it, so might have to settle for the Schutte  Mass of Christ the Saviour.   People know, and it's almost as on-point.

Hymns

Entrance

Hail Redeemer King Divine

Because we have no king but Thee!  And it has a verses about service, even it didn't fit into most hymn-books, and "Feed us, lead us, keep us thine" - surely the Way, Truth and Life.

Offertory

Do Not be Afraid for I have Redeemed You - because following The Way comes with lots of challenges and failures

Communion

In Christ Alone - indeed he is the Way, Truth and Life, and no mention of kings.

Sending

Hail Queen of Heaven - because it's May, and because we only have one Queen too.

What makes a woman anyway?

An article I want to keep a link to: 
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/what-makes-a-woman.html


Very brief summary

Different brains in men and women are because they have been shaped by a different experiences.

Many people who call themselves progressive ...— are buying into the idea that minor differences in male and female brains lead to major forks in the road and that some sort of gendered destiny is encoded in us: the kind of nonsense that was used to repress women for centuries.

People who haven’t lived their whole lives as women shouldn’t get to define women - that’s something men have been doing for far too long,and it needs to stop. .... Their truth is not my truth. Their female identities are not my female identity. They haven’t traveled through the world as women and been shaped by all that this entails. They haven’t suffered through business meetings with men talking to their breasts or woken up after sex terrified they’d forgotten to take their birth control pills the day before. They haven’t had to cope with the onset of their periods in the middle of a crowded subway, the humiliation of discovering that their male work partners’ checks were far larger than theirs, or the fear of being too weak to ward off rapists.

....

The “I was born in the wrong body” rhetoric favored by some trans people .... is just as offensive, reducing us to our collective breasts and vaginas. Imagine the reaction if a young white man suddenly declared that he was trapped in the wrong body and, after using chemicals to change his skin pigmentation and crocheting his hair into twists, expected to be embraced by the black community.

Why I'd never work for the church - by the numbers

American figures, but I suspect the ratios are the same all over the world:

https://prounione.blog/2017/08/09/if-i-wanted-to-be-wealthy-i-should-have-been-a-priest/

Live as though money is no object?

Twittering-class poppycock strikes again.

I'm sure that it must be lovely to have enough money that you can spend your life doing what you desire.

But back in real-world-land, I really appreciate that there are rubbish-collectors, bus-drivers, shop-assistants, road maintenance staff etc etc who spend some of their lives doing very boring-ordinary-not-the-stuff of dreams things, so that all of us can spend a little of of lives doing what we dream of.

Hedonism = society failure.

Church rules and funeral music vs sound pastoral theology

A great piece of pastoral theology from
http://rorycooney.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-ipad-doesnt-lie-funeral-music.html


"because church "rules" about music can be bent for the rich and famous (for instance, when at the cathedral "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" was played at Harry Carey's funeral during the final procession), they can be bent for the not-so-rich and otherwise-unknown when grief enters their houses as well. I resist, I expect that the funeral liturgy will proclaim the resurrection. Since the resurrection is such a surprise, and I have no idea what that means as well, I've had to decide that
assuaging a family's grief by (rarely) playing a song "sacred" only to the memory of the deceased won't keep me or them out of heaven."

Amen to that - what more can I say.

Musicians as God's workers

A quote from Andrew Greeley's introduction to Rory Cooney's 1987 collection "Mystery"

"Musicians, you see, are men and women who see the wonders of God's graceful love in patterns of sound, the splendor of the form of God's beauty manifested and revealed in the proportioned parts of the matter with which they work. They do God's work and are worthy of the respect, the encouragement and the payment due in justice to all God's workers."  

Nice.

We need all styles of music

I do wish our more traditionally-minded brothers and sisters could see things this way:

... discern how the Lord speaks through the different types of worship expressions in the Church and therefore use these expressions appropriately in ministry:

• ... through contemporary praise & worship music, I see the Lord’s intimate love for his people & their passionate response back to him expressed in the simplicity and freedom of the music.
• Through traditional hymnody, I see God’s majesty expressed in the beauty of ordered rhythm & meter.
• In sacred chant, I see the solemnity & truth of God expressed through his Word which are beautifully sung according to the rhythm of the text itself.
• And through the blending of Sacred chant and praise & worship in the Liturgy .... I see God’s people “singing a new song” to the Lord.

Ref:    http://catholic-worship.com/growing-as-a-music-leader-a-reflection-on-the-jesus-retreat-2012/

Personally, I find a great depth of spirit "feeding" in the rhythms of Irish traditional music.   In the intricate patterns blending around each other, with a unifying underlying tune, with a huge sense of life and energy in them ... I see God's hand at work guiding us our lives, and giving us occasional surprising moments.

I See, I See

A poem which appeared around the pubs of Galway after Pope Francis' election.

Ex-Benedict

Many will be horrified, but I'm afraid I just think it's funny:

Thanks to: http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2013/02/14/ex-benedict/

You don't need to have other people's problems for them: Implicit emotional support works better

They may not realise it, but sometimes it seems like many Irish people cannot help but (try to) solve other people's problems - and can't understand why other people aren't grateful:

• I shiver because I remember something horrible that I heard on the news - they run to turn the heating up.
• I say we're not going on holiday this Christmas 'cos we had to go to a funeral - they spend an hour on the internet researching holiday options (most of which I've looked at and rejected already), and start angling to find out who died so they can get a Mass card (ahh, thanks, but the father-in-law didn't actually believe in God).
• I comment that I'm thinking about looking for a new job, they tell me about all the unemployed people they know and why I should be happy to stay where I am. Or I say I'm unemployed, and they tell me about their uncle who's looking for a girl for his reception desk (yup, but I'm a qualified accountant).

Here's a bit of reading that 'd like to share around. It's a bit jargony, and all about work. But basically it's saying that other people will find it more helpful if you tone things down, and assume that they can assume their own problems. Good advice, IMHO.  You cannot do other people's praying or worrying for them.

Religious practice and the trend to specialisation

An interesting thought here, from Catholic Sensibility

"The forces of the culture are arrayed more seriously against Catholics of any age engaging in deeper catechesis. We live in an age of specialization. A college physics major is knowledgeable and competent within her or his discipline. But likely knows little about economics. And an economics major may have a dusing of calculus, but cares nothing for the deep math and concepts masters by a physicist.
Likewise, even committed Catholic college students: why should they learn more about their faith when they have "specialists" to assist them. When confronted with a moral dilemma, why not go to a priest, either live or online? Why make a difficult choice when they can engage an expert to tell them the right thing to do?"

I can see where he's coming from. And potentially this takes us back to times when ordinary people didn't "do" religious stuff at all - they just blindly followed the leader (no matter how good/bad he was).

But today even the specialist builder, hairdresser, teacher or astro-physicist can be expected to have a modest amount of competence in cookery, for instance. At a minimum we expect them to feed themselves - and to be able to use food appropriately on social settings and rituals. Lots of parenting-time is invested in this sort of teaching.

What happens in later life is really up to the individuals interests. Some will indeed turn into food-professionals - the people you consult when you need a fancy meal cooked, or a crowd catered for.

But many won't take their basic knowledge any further until something goes wrong. Even then, dieticians don't expect everyone to become food-science specialists. They aim for clients to to learn enough to be able to make good choices to address their particular situation, and carry them out unassisted.

Spiritual food vs physical food - sounds like a good comparison.

No one expects all eaters to become expert nutritionists.   So I'm not sure why anyone should expect all prayers to become theologians.

Rituals - the good and bad. Can they be ugly too?

An interesting comment, from a local church newsletter, about rituals:

"Not that rituals always work. They go wrong when they become too empty or too full. In both cases they lose their connection with everyday life.
Empty ritual is when we end up just going through the motions: the gift-giving, carol singing, or whatever doesn't connect with how we really feel.
Overblown ritual is the opposite: the ritual becomes so important it becomes an escape from the life that surrounds it.
But at their best, rituals gather up the scattered meanings of our lives and return them to us with fresh clarity and purpose."

Of course, what's empty to one participant may well be meaningful and connected to the next person. Part of being human is that we sometimes do go through the motions, sometime for our own sake, sometimes for other peoples. The woman whose husband died in late December may well "do" Christmas the following year - but only for the sake of her children and the friends who cannot bear the thought of her not doing so. Likely enough the ritual will be empty for her then. But the joy will come back - eventually, most probably in a few years - if she can manage to stay in the habit of "doing Christmas".

And I'm not so sure that empty and overblown are opposites: ritual at its worst becomes both of these at the same time.

Interesting concepts, though, and helpful in terms of focussing on why we do what we do.

Ideals, not rules of membership

Alleluia - finally an Irish bishop saying something sensible:

"...the central tenets of Catholicism were not established as rules of memberships but as "ideals". "These are all ideals that we must try to live up to. If you do not meet all these ideals, it does not mean that you cannot take your place at the table the Lord has prepared for you. The Church is a refuge for the weak, not a home for the perfect."

Ref:   http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2013/01/tenets-of-catholicism-are-ideals-not-rules-says-irish-bishop/

And before anyone starts asking what counts as a central tenet that's just an ideal vs a basic tenet of faith that is required due to being infallibly proclaimed - remember that faith is a journey. Almost no one is going to believe with the same depth for their who life. The whole point of being a community of sinful believers is to support each other on the journey, not to exclude based on weakness.

Liturgy - our work, or our participation in God's work

Today I ran into a claim that

at the pope's Wednesday audience last week, he said, “the word ‘liturgy’ means the participation of the People of God in the work of God.”

A little Googling tells me that it's actually a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, viz:

1069 The word "liturgy" originally meant a "public work" or a "service in the name of/on behalf of the people." In Christian tradition it means the participation of the People of God in "the work of God."5 Through the liturgy Christ, our redeemer and high priest, continues the work of our redemption in, with, and through his Church.
(ref: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2.htm)

Footnote 5 refers to . Jn 17:4. - "I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do."

Now, it makes sense to me that liturgy is one of the ways that we do God's work, in particular one of the ways that we open up God's story and grace to other people by enabling sacramental moments.   But I just cannot wrap my head around the fact that liturgy itself is God's work, not ours.

And there's a wicked voice in my head saying that if it's God's work, then God can get busy organising the rosters, training the readers, preparing the visual-aids, washing the linen, etc - and we'll just show up on time and "participate".

I'm centre-left, and I sometimes feed adrift

I came across this blog post the other day:   http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/surprising-support-and-future-center-left

His conclusions are pretty much aimed at American Catholics.    But I found a few part of the reasoning helpful for naming my own position and challenges.

"Ideological labels for the church are notoriously ill-fitting, but if we're going to use them, I prefer the European taxonomy of "left, center-left, center-right, and right"  ... most self-described moderates actually lean one way or the other, but their defining trait is a preference for consensus.

Yup,that one fits.

"... center-left, meaning Catholics whose instincts run to the liberal side but who still believe in working within the system ..."

That one too.

The center-left, however, sometimes seems adrift.
You can find these folks working in chanceries, ministering in parishes and teaching in Catholic schools, not to mention making up a good chunk of the rank-and-file. They don't like some of what they're seeing from Rome and the U.S. bishops, but they don't want to end up in opposition either. It's not always clear to them what the third option might be.

Check.


I've spent a lot of my church-life defining myself as "not":   not conservative, not radical, not a follower of any particular lay movement or religious order.   My understanding of my vocation is to serve God through service of humankind - every day, acting to make the world a slightly better place rather than a slightly worse one.  Very, very occasionally that means doing something profound.   Most of the time it means small actions, like leaving tempting-but-unkind comments un-said and being polite to people who I don't like.    I'm happy to encourage other people in their religious passions, and believe that the world needs some people who are single-minded about issues.   But mostly I'm not so single minded and don't see that my faith or church "must"  revolve around Lourdes, justice & peace, Padre Pio, the Child of Prague, opposing abortion, or whatever.   But I will work very hard so that all these single-issue-supporters can fit in.

What's particualrly nice about the NCR post is that it affirms that there are people like me.   Somehow it's a world view that doesn't get a lot of coverage, and that can be lonely at times

There was one more interesting quote too:

Today, two-thirds of the Catholics on earth live in the southern hemisphere, a share that will be three-quarters by mid-century.

What's most striking is that many northern hemisphere Catholics don't even realise just how profound the north/south differences are.  Whereas southern hemisphere ones grow up with an understanding that seasons - and thus seasonal liturgical paterns - are not universal.

Faith development - based in the Sunday community, or not?

So my diocese is holding a Mass to launch the Year of Faith - a normal enough thing, I suspect that many places around the world will be doing the same.

Problem is, it's at 3pm on Sunday afternoon.

So there will be some holy-Joes who attend their parish's Sunday Mass and this special one - but is that really healthy faith practise?

There will be some who skip their parish Mass, and go to this one instead. There will be some who go to be seen or to curry favour with the bishop - not actually what Jesus recommended, but common enough human behaviour.

And where will the faithful be? Back home in their parishes, proclaiming the scriptures, handing out the newsletters, making the tea, teaching the children, welcoming visitors, praying for the weary and caring for the needy.

I don't know what the aims of this "year of faith" are (yet), but undermining the place of local communities is not a good way to start.

Comparing a Bruce Springsteen concert to Mass - what can we learn?

An article from Luke Hill in dotCommonweal about Springsteen's North American "Wrecking Ball" concerts:

Much of the audience at a typical Bruce Springsteen concert looks like the folks you might see at the 11:00 Sunday Mass in suburban parishes across the country. (In some cases, they are the same people.) There’s one notable difference: the people at Springsteen’s shows sing.

Now that's interesting quote - because compared to people in Ireland, many many parishes in America do sing.   Or at least they did in 2007, when I was last there.  Ordinary city-centre and city-fringe parishes, the sort that a tourist might find.     For sure, not everyone sang.   But most places, most people did.   So I'm thinking that Luke is pointing to a differece in enthusiam - which might be described as the level of full active participation.   Bruce has these people singing like they mean it - because he knows that singing together is one effective tool for growing solidarity to beat the problems that sparked the tour - and that's something which the Church needs to learn to do.

Luke's conclusion is that Bruce's message is

When facing hard times that exceed the limits of personal experience, remember your history. Remember those who’ve gone before you. Draw strength from their stories and examples. You may need to do what you’ve never done before ...

It strikes me that's a message which Catholics in Ireland need to hear.  

But it's got to come with a fair dose of discernment:  looking to the past needs to mean a lot lot more than continuing  blaming the [Vikings | English |  Vatican | bishops | priests | nuns].   And we need to find the real spritiual strengths, not simply mimic practices that were adopted to deal with problems at a time, and retained because no one ever said "why?".

Understanding Sacraments - Week six, Marriage

A Theology assignment from 1999.

The Second Vatican Council used the word 'covenant' more commonly than 'contract' to describe the partnership that is marriage. This term recalls the covenant which God made with the Jewish people of Old Testament times, and the new covenant made between God the Church by Christ's coming to earth. It refers primarily to a relationship between people rather than a set of rights and responsibilities, and when the relationship is damaged in some way, personal violation, rather than material loss, is the primary negative effect. Covenant is intrinsically about the deepest meanings in human life, not merely about commercial transactions. As such, it is best understood by ordinary people rather than lawyers(1).   Covenant as a type of relationship is intrinsically witnessed by God rather than by people or human organisations, and entering into them requires a degree of mental, emotional and spiritual maturity (note that these three are never absolute - but our understanding of marriage is such that 'adults' are generally judged to have attained them sufficiently to enter into a marriage covenant).

The use of this word reflected a change in Catholic understanding of the nature of marriage between two baptised persons.   Traditional theology viewed marriage as a sacrament, certainly. But it was a sacrament occurring in the context of a contract between man and woman, rather than in the context of the relationship between them. Adopting the idea of marriage as covenant shifted the fundamental basis for the sacrament of marriage from one which focussed on mutual obligations to one based on the loving commitment between to people.

Lawler argues that the radical and solemn commitment that is implied by covenant is a mutual commitment to:

• Create a life of equal and intimate partnership in abiding love
• Create and sustain a climate of personal openness, acceptance, trust and honest that will nurture such an intimate community and the abiding love that is essential to it. This intimate community of love is made possible when certain rules of behaviour are created which will respect , nurture and sustain it
• Explore together the religious depth of human existence and to respond in the light of Christian faith, and
• Abide in love and in covenant and to withdraw from them only if the life of intimacy has ceased to exist and if all available means to restore it have been tried and have failed.

The 'rules' in the second point are nothing more (or less) than the fundamental 'rules' for life as a Christian, namely, love and service. There are numerous scriptural passages which show this. This point also relates to the way in which Ephesians 5:22 (Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord') should be interpreted. The first point to consider in understanding this verse is its wider context. The overall instruction being given in 5:21-33 is that all people should 'be subject to one another out of reverence to Christ'. This was particularly revolutionary to a people living in a culture of extreme hierarchy and dominance. To make the point, the letter-writer provides examples based on ordinary household relationships. Husbands and wives are instructed that their relationships should mirror those of Jesus and his Church, and it is clear (from various parts of scripture and from tradition) that Jesus relationship with the Church is one of leadership through service, not authority. Thus, mutual service, not domination is one of the fundamental rules of Christian marriage, as well as how Christians are to treat one another.

Theologians have defined three different dimensions of human love which are present and necessary in the love between husband and wife.

• Agape is love for the sake of others, 
• Philia is love for a friend, 
• Eros is love for one's own sake. 

All three are necessary components of Christian marriage, if such marriage is to be the whole personal relationship which is necessary fulfil the implications of marriage as a covenant relationship as listed previously. Husband and wife must love each other. They must also be each others best friend, and their life together must satisfy their sexual needs.

Catholic understanding makes a distinction between the sacramentality and validity of marriages. To be sacramental, it is necessary that both partners in a marriage have been baptised by a Christian church using a form which Catholicism considers valid (basically involving water and a trinitarian formula). Valid, on the other hand, requires a number of factors including the consent of the couple and the authority of the minister etc. The distinction between these two aspects of marriage is most important when considering cases where the marriage is 'over' in the eyes of the couple. Sacramental marriages may be dissolved if they were not consummated or annulled if there are sufficient ground to doubt the validity of the marriage. Non-sacramental marriages, on the other hand, may be dissolved under the pauline or petrine privileges.

[The session that this essay is based on ] provided a number of insights into the sacrament of marriage. The teaching that marriage is a sacrament that the couple 'give' to each other with God as witness raises some interesting issues. The other sacraments, are (we believe) perfectly executed when they are carried out according to the Church's rites and by people who intend what they effect etc. The particular liturgical execution may be poor, but the visibile presence and action of Christ is fully present. But with marriage, it is hard to say that the sacrament is fully present immediately after the wedding ceremony, or even after 50 years of life together. The sacrament is not one moment of interaction with God, but a lifetime.

Also, I have an impression that the theology of marriage is that it is somehow less 'sorted out' than the other sacraments. Baptism is a one-off exercise involving forgiveness of sins. But when the inevitable happened and people committed serious sin afterwards, the early Church developed a sacramental means of dealing with the damaged relationships. But it has not been able to do so adequately(2)  for marriage. Even confirmation, which has a number of problems associated with it, at least has the problems well defined. But for marriage I get a sense that many of the issues to do with the personalistic approach are still not fully stated. My own view is that part of the problem is that almost our entire theology of sexuality is intrinsically tied to marriage. We acknowledge that all people are sexual, and that this is an important and sacred part of their identify. But we link this absolutely with procreation, and thus with family and marriage. I suspect that until we can face the issues around sexuality, and in particular the sexuality of people who are not married (for whatever reason), we will not deal with marriage breakdown well.

Hand in hand with the impression that the theology of marriage is less 'sorted out' than the other sacraments is the observation that it is the best 'classified' - there are plenty of rules and categories for describing marriages in legalistic terms. But we do not have good descriptions for the theology of marriage breakdown when it is approached from a 'thoroughly personalistic' point of view.

Footnotes:

(1) I take issue with Lawyer/Palmer who say covenant is best understood by 'lovers, poets and theologians'. Such people are important in giving voice to society's dreams, but tend to have less understanding of a daily grind which is the reality of a marriage covenant. Lovers in particular are in the grip of a set of biochemical processes which by their very nature are anything but permanent.

(2) Annulments and dissolution’s appear to apply to only a small proportion of cases.