Giving Up Pseudo-liturgical Habits of Mind And Body

It's not about what we do in the liturgy; it's about what God does in and through the Mass. 'It' being God's invitation to communion with Him.

The last six decades or thereabouts has seen a massive induction of egotism into the liturgical hall of fame, the realm of the sacred that we call the Mass. Fame, i.e., the glory and honour due to God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the source and summit of the Christian life. (SC #10; CCC 1324).

The surreptitious and at times not-so subtle actions of liturgical revolutionaries, having no foundation for their distortion of the ars celebrandi, have so successfully created a stench of strange and corrosive liturgical practices that are so foreign to authentic worship that we find ourselves as Catholics often beating our heads against a tower of human ignorance and vapid conditions entrenched in parishes and parochial schools. The task of reorientation seems almost impossible given the pandemic of lukewarm faith among the brethren in the West.

Let's begin with an invitation to reconnect to the truth.

We are neither passive observers nor liturgical activists but receptive listeners and pray-ers. We are not meant to impose ourselves upon the Sacred Liturgy, for to do so would shift the focus away from Jesus on to us, resulting in idolatry. Rather, we cooperate with God by being present to His Presence, by welcoming Him with open hearts again and again and again. We call that habitual turning of our lives toward God the practice of the Faith.

Given the multitude of ridiculous and at times scandalous liturgies viewable on a variety of online platforms, the evidence exposes that many Catholics have lost sight of the fact that Jesus is the principal actor in the Mass.

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." St John 14:6

Because He is Lord, our actions must conform to His will. That being the case, we can and should approach the worship of Almighty God with an attitude of deference and receptivity, and a consuming desire born of the graces that God supplies, to be wholly configured to the actions of Jesus in the Mass. Said and/or sung and/or gestural prayer is born of the action of the Holy Spirit manifesting the Word, the Eternal Logos, which creates in the willing soul a desire to adore the living God, man's Creator.

Creating awareness.

The Church supplies us with abundant guidance as to how God is present in the Mass. Jesus is present:

1. in the priest acting in persona christi.
2. in the congregation: "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I (Jesus) in the midst of them." (St Matthew 18:19-20)
3. in the word of God. The Word, the Divine Logos, is present in His word, i.e., Holy Scripture. The word of God is spoken and sung and even gestured (Sign of the Cross, bows of various kinds, genuflections, the kissing and elevation of the Book of the Gospels, the kissing of the altar).
4. in the Blessed Sacrament: the Body and Blood of Christ, the Holy Eucharist.

If Jesus is Present in the Mass, and indeed He is Present, then the many instances of the revelations of His Presence and lordship throughout the Mass justify our bows, genuflections, signs of the cross, and our fervent 'amens'. It is through those grace-filled gestures inspired by God that God pours out additional graces to strengthen in us His Presence.

God lends us His dignity to strengthen our own; we are blessed to know and love and to serve Him.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." St Matthew 5:8

In life as in the Mass, we are invited to cooperate with God. We respond to His invitation to new life and growth in holiness by practicing docility to God's will, a docility that allows the Holy Spirit to refine in us our likeness to God. That new life is identified by an increase of joy, hope, faith, patience, fortitude, contrition, forgiveness and a most sublime love, a love that allows us to embrace every trial and every person, even those who hate and persecute us for following Jesus and for defending the Truth.