Liturgy Litmus

Gone to the dogs. Deacon Anthony Dilenno of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia | JMonaco

We are what we pray. We live the way we pray.

People who scoff at the idea that by saving the Liturgy one saves the world tends to confirm a lack of liturgical literacy. Even with more than five decades of hearing the phrase the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life (Lumen Gentium 11), most Catholics, it seems, or at least those who have little respect for the manner in which the Mass is celebrated, do not realize that what they do to the Liturgy they do to Christ. There should be little surprise that parishes are in decline when so little reverence is offered to Christ in the Liturgy. A lack of reverence demonstrates a lack of humility. A lack of humility demonstrates a lack of faith.

Saint Matthew 13: 57-58

But Jesus said unto them, "A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house." And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house.” And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief. 

Sick Liturgy? Sick people.

There is ample evidence that there is a correlation between moral laxity and liturgical laxity, et vice versa. Open a digital page and the internet reeks with abuse, liturgical and sexual. Priests and laity fail to understand that the relationship we have with Christ in His Liturgy is vital to our salvation and the salvation of the world, to evangelization. Contemporary man is so preoccupied with participating in a way that assumes we make the Mass that he cannot see nor hear Christ present in and through the Mass by being present to the action of Christ and then entering into His action.

A Reason for Rubrics: Liturgical Morality

Without respectful attention to the rubrics improvisation dominates. The attention due to God is then transferred to the improvisors.

Dr. Kwasniewski captures the importance and consequences of misappropriating the actions of the Liturgy by citing the Angelic Doctor:

Sometimes the one celebrating the sacraments differently [than prescribed] does not vary those things that are essential to the sacrament [i.e., the form and matter], and in that case, the sacrament is indeed conferred; but one does not obtain the reality of the sacrament unless the sacrament’s recipient is immune from the fault of the one celebrating it differently. (In IV Sent., d. 4, q. 3, a. 2, qa. 2, ad 4) [Ad quartum dicendum, quod aliter celebrans quandoque non variat ea quae sunt de essentia sacramenti, et tunc confertur sacramentum; sed non consequitur aliquis rem sacramenti, nisi suscipiens sacramentum sit immunis a culpa aliter celebrantis.]

That is an astonishing claim: one does not receive the res sacramenti, the very thing the sacrament was instituted to give us, if one embraces the fault of the minister who unlawfully varies even those things that are incidental to the conferral of the sacrament. Such a claim brings into sharp relief the seriousness with which St. Thomas took the liturgical law of the Church, a perspective widely shared by his contemporaries. It is a perspective that, while slowly reviving among us, still has many converts to win.

By being aware of the inherent choreography of the Mass, and respectful of the liturgical heritage of the Church, we may then better embody the theological truths prescribed for our spiritual health and ultimate salvation than when we impose ego-driven drama upon the Mass. When we start to invent and impose haphazard activities and turn the Mass into a plaything, active participation, as commonly understood, becomes an obstacle to hearing the voice of God. Our senses and imaginations, so cluttered by distractions, develop a need or demand for infatuation. Feelings then begin to rule the day, and the Presence of God becomes an afterthought.

Far Out

Have you noticed that versus populum liturgies tend to turn good priests into talk show hosts and the congregation into a spectating audience? The Second Vatican Council sought to correct and avoid turning the Mass into a show, into entertainment.

II. The Promotion of Liturgical Instruction and Active Participation

14. Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy. Such participation by the Christian people as "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people (1 Pet. 2:9; cf. 2:4-5), is their right and duty by reason of their baptism. - Sacrosanctum Concilium

In the foreword to Fr. Samuel Weber’s Proper of the Mass, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone offers the following gloss:

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.

Actuosa bespeaks a profoundly (one might even say totally) active response that goes beyond superficial sayings or gestures, beyond the moving of the mouth or hands, to the motions of the heart. Participatio actuosa calls forth a total response, beginning from the mind, involving memory, imagination, and external senses, ending in the soul. People are to be fully engaged with all their faculties of body and soul, in this regard quite like a ballet dancer or a Shakespearian actor. Actuosa essentially says: Be as active as you can be in the activity of divine worship, which is first and foremost interior (after all, only intellectual beings can worship — brute animals, plants, minerals, are excluded from that noble activity) and becomes external when and as appropriate for each category of participant. - A Note on Participation: What Can We Learn from the Word Actuosa? by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

Ironically, the 1962 Missal, which the Bugnini-led consilium sought to update, seems to do a much better job, if you will, of enabling people to engage in intentional worship of God without the self congratulatory distractions that commonly saturate celebrations of the 2002 Missal. That assessment is based on hundreds of conversations and daily observations made over the past 35 years. Having been immersed in communities celebrating the Pauline Liturgy, and later attending both Pauline and 1962 Missal liturgies when Masses using the 1962 Missal became available in our area, this blogger has had the opportunity - like so many other liturgiphiles - to observe in order to learn and report.

There is a clear sense of awe and humility among those who attend the 1962 Missal liturgies. Awe. Humility. Joy. Are those not expressions of a much desired active participation? By contrast, attendees of the Pauline Missal liturgies typically comment on the sermon and music. When queried about other elements, i.e., the content of the prayers and scripture passages, and ritual (non-verbal gestures), respondents hardly seem to have been engaged. It seems the ultimate criterion for judging the success of the Pauline Mass is how the Liturgy on any given day makes certain people feel.

If familiarity with Scripture is one of the desired outcomes of the liturgical reform (the three year lectionary Cycle comes to mind...), then the level of ignorance of Scripture among diocesan Catholics is a damning indictment of the program intended to acquaint Catholics with biblical texts. Most Catholics' knowledge of Scripture proves there is still much to be done to improve familiarity with the Bible. That outcome sought by the Second Vatican Council has yet to be realized. To put it bluntly, Catholics have failed to embrace Holy Scripture as their daily bread. Perhaps if more people reviewed those passages condemning fornication and other sexual sins the Church (and world) would be in a much better state than it is.

The preceding paragraphs are not intended to suggest the 1970/1975/2002 Missal (Third Typical Edition) cannot be beautifully and reverently celebrated. The 2002 Mass celebrated ad orientem at the London Oratory or at Saint John Cantius Parish in Chicago puts the lie to any claims the 2002 Missal is invalid or incapable of being celebrated in an authentic manner.

So who or what is at fault? Why is the typical diocesan (2002 Missal) Mass a mess? Why is the Church a mess these days?

Enough is more than enough

It is the contention of many caring souls - who express themselves in a multitude of online forums - that the abuse of the Pauline Mass is a direct expression of the will of individuals who are spiritually and morally corrupt. Allowing men whose hands are habitually dyed with mortal sin to paw the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Mass must stop.

For the good of souls, it needs to be said: a purge is needed, a purge of clergy who have little or no interest in restraining their sexual and material appetites nor any interest in conforming their lives to the Gospel. For those who are honestly trying to restrain their disordered passions, and who stay close to Jesus in the confessional, they should not fear any such purge. God loves the repentant sinner. However, the maladjusted individuals who revel in their double lives, dashing between one dalliance after another, they should be concerned about punishments in both this life and the next. God, help us to end the corruption, and God give us the grace to endure the process of renewal.

As a recent series of articles at The Pillar have revealed, the threat to the Church from within by clergy who are using dating apps to hook up is very serious. The Pillar articles expose what has been known by so many flies on Vatican, seminary and chancellery walls for decades. Men entrusted with the sublime responsibility of being stewards of the Sacred Liturgy are behaving in despicable ways, ways that have failed the faithful and that have led to a terrible falling away.

Pity the men who are faithful, who have been subject to the vile advances of their brother seminarians and priest-mentors. Pity the men who have had to endure the subculture of evil that has haunted seminaries and dioceses for far too long. Seminaries have become the feeding grounds of sharks. We know all too well how many people have become casualties in a secret war kept secret by the same priests who have forged diabolical networks that allow them to exploit power and to engage in horrifying abuse of others.

https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccatheduc/documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_20051104_istruzione_en.html

Clergy misbehaviour is proving to be a disaster for the Church, as much as the behaviour of lay men and women has reached rock bottom in the era of the sexual revolution. Priests compromised by moral laxity cannot maintain a standard of liturgical propriety befitting Christian worship of the Most Holy Trinity. An emasculated priesthood produces limp liturgies that are intellectually safe, worldly, and human-centred, with little room for God's agenda - the salvation of souls. Clergy compromised by double lives cannot invite the rest of us to virtue. They are serving the wrong master. A spouse who violates his or her vows risks inflicting inestimable damage on others. Clergy who obstinately deviate from their vows are infecting the lives of others with their rot. That rot must be pruned. A real man would not betray his spouse, his wife. A real priest would not betray his spouse, the Church.

Bad Shepherd Bad Sheep

Clergy who deny virtue in their own lives, who deny the true orientation of the Mass, deny others the reverence due to the Mass. A concentrated antipathy toward the 1962 Missal, for example, is located in the minds of those who feel threatened by the older rite's confident orientation to Jesus Christ, true God and true man, i.e., in all ways human except without sin. Those threatened by the sinless man Jesus, and for that matter who are threatened by God Who makes Himself known as Father through His only-begotten Son in the Holy Spirit, have for decades attempted to undermine the orientation of the Mass as Jesus acting in and through the (male) priest, Jesus' icon.

Because of its legacy, architecture or geometry (its precise rubrics or art of prayer in non-verbal gesture and relational movement), the older form of Mass, like Divine Worship of the Ordinariate, is less prone to disturbance than the 2002 Missal. The celebration of the 1962 Missal embodies Jesus' confident masculinity which invites worshippers to discover their authentic human selves. The Blessed Virgin Mary lends her confident femininity to the Liturgy, too. Jesus received His human nature and body from her, His mother. She, the new Eve, is made in the image and likeness of God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Mystery! Too often, in celebrations of the 2002 Missal, except perhaps on her major feast days, the Blessed Virgin Mary is tossed in as an afterthought. "Oh right! Yeah... Mary. Cool!"

Mary's perpetual virginity is a threat to those who are defined by their promiscuity, by their having made themselves disposable in an era when disposable plastic containers pollute vast areas of the world's oceans.

Digression: the spiritual degradation of contemporary human beings is manifest in the degradation of the environment. When man is no longer a steward of creation and attempts to be its master, the natural world dies. The natural world often proves to be a mirror of man's spiritual crises.

The Lawless West

The lawlessness of men who reign from the pulpit (but who fail to serve God in the Sacred Liturgy) shows up in the Liturgy. Depravity of the hidden kind inevitably shows itself at the altar. Lawlessness makes men unwilling and unable to delight in the goodness of the Mass. We are given a means of support to be able to delight in the greatness of the Mass. That support is the rubrics, the liturgical scaffolding that constitutes the choreography that places our steps in sync with Christ's, and conducts our voices to be united with the angels in praise of God.

The rot in the hearts of men infects the Liturgy, and when people assisting in the Mass care little for the formation of their consciences, the evil they harbour bends the Mass out of shape into some crass caricature. We've seen decades of liturgical abuse, and with the crude behaviour of priests being exposed, we have the confirmation we need to purify the Church of individuals and groups that place their aberrant and abhorrent behaviour above the true, the good and the beautiful celebration of the 2002 Missal.