Let the Mass Be the Mass: Eucharistic Wreckoning and Renewal.
[ 11 minute read ]
The Holy Eucharist is necessary for the life of Catholics. Zealous faithful Catholics know that. That message has been affirmed, announced, declared, promulgated and shouted by popes, prelates and people and still serious liturgical abuse continues to plague the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church to a degree that millions of souls now wander in confusion and doubt about the Holy Eucharist.
Unfortunately, alongside these lights, there are also shadows. In some places the practice of Eucharistic adoration has been almost completely abandoned. In various parts of the Church abuses have occurred, leading to confusion with regard to sound faith and Catholic doctrine concerning this wonderful sacrament. At times one encounters an extremely reductive understanding of the Eucharistic mystery. Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet. Furthermore, the necessity of the ministerial priesthood, grounded in apostolic succession, is at times obscured and the sacramental nature of the Eucharist is reduced to its mere effectiveness as a form of proclamation. This has led here and there to ecumenical initiatives which, albeit well-intentioned, indulge in Eucharistic practices contrary to the discipline by which the Church expresses her faith. How can we not express profound grief at all this? The Eucharist is too great a gift to tolerate ambiguity and depreciation.
It is my hope that the present Encyclical Letter will effectively help to banish the dark clouds of unacceptable doctrine and practice, so that the Eucharist will continue to shine forth in all its radiant mystery. - Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Encyclical Letter of Pope Saint John Paul II, 17 April 2003, the Year of the Rosary
Reverence for the Holy Eucharist is a necessity for the spiritual life and progress of the faithful.
Reverence for the Holy Eucharist among Catholics affirms that God's gift of grace is acceptedand that Jesus is acknowledged as Lord of one's life and Lord of all.
If polls are accurate, and there is no valid reason to doubt the information that is readily available from proven reliable sources, a significant portion of the Catholic world is indifferent to the preceding message.
In a nearby diocese, save for a diocesan Latin Mass, diocesan Novus Ordo liturgies are for the most part abysmal wrecks.
So: Most Catholics don’t go to Mass, most Catholics have received maybe a few dozen sessions of religious education in their life and most of the liturgies that Catholics do attend de-emphasize, via ritual and underlying assumptions, the unique presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
And we’re surprised that most Catholics don’t believe in transubstantiation? - Amy Welborn
Diocesan Masses are riddled with oddities, to put it mildly:
- heterodox music: nothing new about that, but the fact that it persists is a testament to a serious unwillingness to confront the issue;
- normalization of erotic movement that attempts to pass as liturgical dance... as if calling it dance makes it acceptable;
- careless mishandling of the Blessed Sacrament by communicants, priests and EMHCs;
- heterodox sermons that enable sinful behaviours instead of accompanying people out of sin;
- unsanctioned omissions of the Mass text and/or awkward adaptations of the Mass text made at the whim of clergy.
The preceding list merely confirms the obvious lack of faith among Catholics who sit comfortably in their pews and listen to homilies that nurture in them complacency and contempt for holy things, and that corrupt hearts.
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened so that we may not be condemned along with the world. - 1 Corinthians 11:27-32
Tree. Fruit.
Every day or so, it seems, an article or image makes its way into some social media or legacy media forum that exposes some unseemly activity that obscures the sublime nature of the Mass.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1697961756545446130 H/T Catholic Arena
An ecclesiastical culture in which liturgical abuse is a daily fog that one is forced to breathe tends to enable other abuses. For those needing some convincing, take a look around. Priests, too many of whom that have enabled liturgical abuse, have used parishes to corral their victims, to abuse male adolescents. Attacks on innocent boys and young men speak volumes about the character of the environment in which serial abusers are permitted free reign to devour souls and thereby earn a millstone around their necks. Shabby liturgies and moral depravity are often parish bedfellows.
A recent case reminds us that, all too frequently and under the noses of bishops who are slow to act, young girls are also being groomed by ne'er-do-wells. Our children are under attack because evil despises, attacks and attempts to consume innocence. Sadly - very very sadly - the hearts and minds of children are so severely seared by evil that, because children bury the hurt and too easily blame themselves for the evil committed against them by adults whom they thought loved them, the damage emerges decades later to disturb their adult lives.
Irreverent liturgies are a sign and symptom of the times, of the malice, ignorance, doubt and insensitivity among Catholics. If priests and laity can treat the Lord of Hosts with near contempt, e.g., by fondling the Blessed Sacrament as if it were fast food or candy, should it surprise anyone that ill willed men attack God's children when and where they are most vulnerable? The casualties are varied in kind and are multiplying.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Meanwhile, good and faithful priests are berated for being true to Christ and for calling us to be our better selves in Christ.
Too many Catholics have become weak-kneed, limp and agreeable to the point of performing somersaults to get along with the spirit of the age, trading good things for cheap substitutes and pretending that evangelization is someone else's job.
The "muscles" for listening and responding to God have atrophied. Catholics have become bloated on a steady diet of homiletic pablum. So, when said good priests challenge their flocks to step up and turn to Christ, is it any wonder that they are accused of a bad bedside manner, are reported to their bishops, and then given a time-out for actually expecting us to live and pray as disciples of Jesus Christ? They are punished for doing what priests should be doing while miscreants are busy tickling the ears of willing mascots (2 Timothy 4:3-4). A day of reckoning approaches.
Like loving parents and caring teachers, bishops and priests must hold us to high expectations and - and here's the necessary partner to expectations - provide authentic support to help us achieve those expectations. Authentic spiritual support includes offering the sacred Liturgy with dignity, depth and prayer directed to God!
Dignified and deeply prayerful worship directed to God.
A lack of reverence bears witness to a lack of humility and a lack of grace. There is little room in the heart of the proud person to worship anyone other than himself.
And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree. - excerpt from the Magnificat (St Luke 1:46-55)
Heterodox Catholics who promote agendas that seek to rob us of our dignity continue to exert pressure on the Church to change for the worse. Liturgical abuse reigns in the form of the politicization and appropriation of the Mass to focus attention on social issues pleasing to certain tragically misguided individuals and groups.
And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd about them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed, and ran up to him and greeted him. And he asked them, “What are you discussing with them?” And one of the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a dumb spirit; and wherever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” And they brought the boy to him; and when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has he had this?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “If you can! All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse; so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” - St Mark 9: 14 - 29
Bad Actors
From the beginning, the Church has had in her midst bad actors willingly occupied by evil. Judas, for one. Every generation is plagued with miscreants who care little about the consequences of their actions and who seem to enjoy making everyone else miserable.
The Sacrament of Penance has been marginalized - because no one actually sins, do they? - and the confessional has become something far less than an encounter between heaven and earth, between Creator and creature. The loss of a sense of sin is a loss of a bulwark against truly evil behaviour.
A conscience that is made something of a screen door, permeable to the influence of evil, is a conscience that is also deaf to the liberating voice of the Holy Ghost. The soul that has embraced the false counsel of evil then becomes dimmed and opaque, unable to remain focussed on and transformed by the illuminating presence of the Holy Ghost. If said soul does not confront a crisis with complete honesty to effect a shift its orientation, an opening whereby it might apprehend the truth of the Gospel, and therefore the truth about itself, then that soul may very well succumb to despair or worse.
The Church has wrongly relied on secular authorities to protect our most vulnerable members. During the 1970s and 1980s, when the Church relied on psychologists to assess abusive clergy, the social sciences failed to catch the seriousness of the problem plaguing the Church and society-at-large. Whether it was pride or ignorance or naivete, the social sciences enabled many abusers to continue occupying parishes - and schools and sports teams and scouting groups and ... . All too often good Bishops relied heavily on naive and prideful secular specialists, which resulted in disastrous consequences for youth and children. That bishops ignored the counsel of Scripture, i.e., the wisdom of God available to help navigate the intrusions of evil men and to defend the Church against attack from within, is an indictment of their lack of faith and trust in the power of God's word. Limp liturgy, limp theology and limp biblical exegesis have resulted in lax morals and a continent-wide den of iniquity.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. - Romans 1:28
Promise
The Ordinariate has an opportunity to instill in the wider Church a liturgical character through which God inspires saintliness.
saintly (adj.) (Online Etymology Dictionary)
"like or characteristic of a saint, befitting a holy person," 1620s, from saint (n.) + -ly (1). Middleton used saintish; Dryden has saintlike. Related: Saintlily; saintliness.
The Patrimony emphasizes the nexus between worshipping God in spirit and truth attentive to goodness and beauty, and authentic living. God is the author of truth, goodness and beauty. The closer we cooperate with God, those realities - signs of His Presence, God's gifts of grace - inform and transform our lives so that we more resemble Jesus Christ and more perfectly communicate His love and mercy to the multitude of wounded individuals that knowingly or unknowingly have need of healing and wholeness.
For there to be a Eucharistic revival there must be a renewal of a lived appreciation for:
- respect for the rubrics and liturgical customs that eliminate confusion and support the worship of Almighty God achieved through...
- rehearsal of the sacred Liturgy so that distractions are minimized, a focus on prayer is reinforced, so that...
- reverence for the Real Presence is sustained every day, every hour, every second of our lives.
Resources abound to support... .
- respect for the rubrics.
- rehearsal for the refinement of the celebration of the Mass.
- reinforcement of liturgical prayer as a way of life.
- reverence for the Real Presence and communion with Jesus.
- E.g., https://www.eucharisticrevival.org/revival-resources
- Source & Summit: a Liturgical Catechism: CLICK HERE
For those progressive or liberal readers - if they've made it this far in this post - who are inclined to a different understanding of the Mass than the Church's own understanding - her teachings (doctrines) briefly here represented but hopefully with much of the substance represented here also, and if not here in this post then certainly permeating this blog for readers to explore - and who do not have a sincere desire to restore God-centred respect and prayer to the celebration of the sacred Liturgy, it may be painful to let go of certain beliefs you have harboured about Catholic worship. Persevere! Continue to examine the purpose of the Mass. Consider the Mass as art, for starters. Reject the notion of the Mass as a performance, which ironically has become the norm in many places purporting to be homes of Christ-centred praise and worship. Emotionalism is a weak replacement for intentional participation fed by Christ-imbued ritual, ritual that because it is purified of ego and rich with beauty helps worshippers hear and receive the Eucharistic Lord.
It former times, when the Mass was celebrated solely in Latin, except for the sermon, people let the Mass be the Mass. Our near ancestors were accused of little or no participation, save for praying their rosaries during Mass. Yet, they had the good sense to let the Mass be the Mass. They were on board the boat of the Liturgy and could confidently rely on the priest to bring them to the Holy Eucharist, and to bring the Holy Eucharist to them. Yes - if contemporary accounts and the witness of concerned pastors means anything - people in the pew tended to be reduced to mere spectators, and dull habit inhibited fervour. It would be unfair and inaccurate to conclude that all Catholics prior to the Second Vatican Council were deficient in their relationship with Christ in the Eucharist, just as today it would be wrong to say there are no saints present at Novus Ordo liturgies that are a shambles. So priest-centred are those wrecked and wrecking liturgies that they practically have the pewsitter fawning over the priest and ignoring God present among them.
Today we have many people ignorant about authentic participation in the sacred Liturgy because they have been taught - by example or by word - that the definition of Catholic worship is the act of doing something for the sake of doing something rather than being, being present to Jesus in His Mass. We can be more present to Jesus, the principal actor in the Mass, when the rituals are true, good and beautiful. Jesus Himself imparts to us the grace to help us become true, good and beautiful like God, to become a perfect reflection of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in Whose image we are created, to grow in holiness, in likeness to God.
Unless there is a renewal that elevates the importance of our relationship with Jesus in the Mass, little good will result. An heap of money, time and effort will be wasted on useless agendas that ignore the necessity of formation in the orthodox Faith received from the Apostles.
We in the Ordinariate, blessed with a sublimely beautiful Eucharistic Liturgy and Office, can serenely and confidently share with our Catholic brethren - and all interested in pleasing God - the many gifts bestowed upon us by God for the salvation of souls.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
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Source & Summit: a Liturgical Catechism: CLICK HERE
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