Formation in Liturgical Spirituality

Divine Worship, the Ordinariate Form of the Mass

Representatives of Youth Speak News (YSN), a mentoring program comprised of "student writers from across Canada"(,) have weighed in on the Pope's latest letter, Christus Vivit (Christ Lives). Youth Speak News is "(i)n its 19th year. The Catholic Register’s award-winning Youth Speak News continues to help young people with an interest in media to develop their skills in a faith context. (YSN)"

https://www.catholicregister.org/ysn/ysn-news/item/29424-ysn-reacts-to-christus-vivit

A Love Letter to Liturgy by Vincent Pham. As a Catholic liturgy-lover, I am glad the Pope addressed the topic of liturgy in the exhortation (section 224). We (the Church) need only find the right ways and means to help them embark on this precious experience,” he wrote of the liturgy. He acknowledged that many young people take part in Eucharistic Adoration and Bible study together, and that “many young people have come to appreciate silence and closeness to God. In a day and age where it seems like youth do not give much attention to the liturgy and Sunday Mass, I find assurance reading this. My concern is that in my own community, there seems to be a lack of youth participation in the liturgy in general. I wonder what the Church and even the Archdiocese of Toronto will do to pull more Catholic youth into active participation in the liturgy. I hope that somehow the liturgical ministries can be “rebranded” in order to attract more youth. In many parishes I find it a pity that youth lack participation in the ministries of sacred music, altar serving and distribution of Holy Communion. (Notice the young people serving Mass in the photo above!) I am by no means encouraging a new translation of the Roman Missal or any revisions to the celebration of liturgy for youth, but I think the Church should continue to call on youth to participate.

If any "rebranding" is to occur, the re-branders must conform themselves to Ministeria Quaedam, for starters, which heralds the true, good and beautiful celebration of the Mass in an ordered manner oriented to the worship of God.

If parishes are to become something more than circuses rife with liturgical abuse, informed parishioners must remind each pastor that the Mass has liturgical norms that require and certainly benefit from a trained corps of altar servers, lectors and so forth. As for "distribution of Holy Communion", the writer's complaint evinces a lack of awareness of a necessary understanding and training mandated in Ministeria Quaedam, that oft overlooked document of Pope Saint Paul VI that the Ordinariate does an exemplary job of implementing.

While his hope for greater engagement is a hope shared by all serious Catholics, the writer must confront the larger issue of liturgical formation, or the lack thereof, or the avoidance of erroneous ideas. The student writer's opinion regarding the administration of Holy Communion, for example, merely parrots a misunderstanding held by too many Catholics, even so-called trained liturgists.

[6] The acolyte is appointed in order to aid the deacon and to minister to the priest. It is his duty therefore to attend to the service of the altar and to assist the deacon and the priest in liturgical celebrations, especially in the celebration of Mass; he is also to distribute communion as a special minister when the ministers spoken of in the Codex Iuris Canonici can. 845 are not available or are prevented by ill health, age, or another pastoral ministry from performing this function, or when the number of communicants is so great that the celebration of Mass would be unduly prolonged. In the same extraordinary circumstances an acolyte may be entrusted with publicly exposing the blessed sacrament for adoration by the faithful and afterward replacing it, but not with blessing the people. He may also, to the extent needed, take care of instructing other faithful who on a temporary basis are appointed to assist the priest or deacon in liturgical celebrations by carrying the missal, cross, candles, etc., or by performing other such duties. He will perform these functions more worthily if he participates in the holy eucharist with increasingly fervent devotion, receives nourishment from it, and deepens his knowledge about it.

As one set aside in a special way for the service of the altar, the acolyte should learn all matters concerning public divine worship and strive to grasp their inner spiritual meaning: in that way he will be able each day to offer himself entirely to God, be an example to all by his gravity and reverence in church, and have a sincere love for the Mystical Body of Christ, the people of God, especially for the weak and the sick. - Ministeria Quaedam

As most folk who attend Novus Ordo liturgies can surely attest to, there are typically Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion so numerous and so poorly formed that the only reason for allowing such a travesty to continue is an obstinate refusal to conform to the teaching of the Church as found in Ministeria Quaedam. That there is so little reverence for the Eucharistic species, i.e., the Body and Blood of Christ, can be laid at the feet of priests and bishops who avoid the responsibility of inculcating a proper disposition toward the Sacred Host and Precious Blood, a disposition fostered and enhanced by the proper and reverential administration of the Body and Blood by well trained instituted acolytes as taught by Pope Saint Paul VI in Ministeria Quaedam.

If progress is to be made to engage hearts and minds, Catholics need access to the teaching of the Church, teaching free of anti-Catholic ideology that permeates liturgical discussions and misshapes the Mass.

If the writer's hope of engagement of young people is to be realized, a simple online search of tradition-minded communities will reveal how engagement of young people is best understood and achieved. Young people, all Catholics for that matter, require reliable mentors who are well trained in the liturgical spirituality of the Church. Unfortunately, the Novus Ordo liturgical environment is rarely the locus of faithfulness to liturgical tradition. In this blogger's experience, when people encounter liturgical authenticity as one typically finds in Ordinariate and Extraordinary Form communities, young and old discover Jesus Christ alive in His Mass. Hearing the word of God, encountering and receiving the Word of God, Jesus, in His Eucharistic Presence, Mass-goers in turn discover how to allow the Mass to shape their daily lives.

A deeper catechesis is required if Catholics young and old are to engage. When the phrase "active participation in the liturgy" is used, the necessary amplification or correction must follow. The Church has spoken about participatio actuosa, not participatio activa. The former expression accurately denotes the Church's tradition of liturgical spirituality, the other expression not so much.

Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco sums up the necessary doctrinal amplification, quoted in an article by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski:

Perhaps a better word to express this teaching of the Council (“actuosa” in the original Latin) is “engaged”: we are present to the liturgical action, allowing it to seep down into the depths of our consciousness. Thus, in speaking of the “restoration” of the sacred liturgy, the Council fathers articulated their vision of restoring the liturgy to what it was always meant to be: Catholics at Mass engaged in understanding and praying the liturgy with heart and mind, and this active engagement expressed in their reciting and singing the parts of the Mass proper to them, rather than sitting (or kneeling, as the case may be) as passive observers, saying their own private prayers. That is, personal devotion is to enhance one’s full, active and conscious participation at Mass, not substitute for it.

Another quote from the same article:

The real “action” in the liturgy in which we are all supposed to participate is the action of God Himself. This is what is new and distinctive about Christian liturgy: God Himself acts and does what is essential. - Joseph Ratzinger, Dogma and Preaching.