Say 'No' To Say 'Yes' To... . | A Brief Defense Of Holy Things

1. Say 'no' to communion in the hand... to say 'yes' to the profound adoration of God by receiving the Holy Eucharist on the tongue. I mention, for example, a change not proposed by the Council Fathers or by the Sacrosanctum Concilium, Holy Communion received in the hand. This has contributed to some extent to a weakening of faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This, and the removal of altar rails and kneelers in church and the introduction of practices which oblige the faithful to sit or stand at the elevation of the Sacred Host, weakens the genuine significance of the Eucharist and the Church’s profound sense of adoration for the Lord, the Only Son of God. Albert Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith (November, 2007) | Behind communion-in-the-hand – I wish to repeat and make as plain as I can – is a weakening, a conscious, a deliberate weakening of faith in the Real Presence. Father John Hardon, S.J., November, 1997 | One receives in the mouth what one believes by faith. Pope Saint Leo I (440-461)
2. Say 'no' to liturgical pop music... to say 'yes' to beautiful sacred music. The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action. Pope Saint Paul VI, Sacrosanctum Concilium: Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy | These qualities [sacredness, beauty, universality] are to be found, in the highest degree, in Gregorian Chant, which is, consequently, the chant proper to the Roman Church, the only chant she has inherited from the ancient fathers, which she has jealously guarded for centuries in her liturgical codices, which she directly proposes to the faithful as her own, which she prescribes exclusively for some parts of the liturgy, and which the most recent studies have so happily restored to their integrity and purity. On these grounds Gregorian Chant has always been regarded as the supreme model for sacred music, so that it is fully legitimate to lay down the following rule: the more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savor the Gregorian form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple. The ancient traditional Gregorian Chant must, therefore, in a large measure be restored to the functions of public worship, and the fact must be accepted by all that an ecclesiastical function loses none of its solemnity when accompanied by this music alone. Special efforts are to be made to restore the use of the Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices, as was the case in ancient times. Pope St Pius X, Tra le sollecitudini paragraph 3.
3. Say 'no' to versus populum liturgies that tend to focus on the congregation... to say 'yes' to reverent ad orientem liturgies that preserve the focus of worship on God and the Real Presence of Jesus Christ. (T)he Catholic Priest should be facing toward Jerusalem or toward the Lord.  The Mass is not about the community gathering for a meal as much as is about the priest leading us in sacrificial worship toward the Heavenly Jerusalem to God. | We would do well to remember, then, that the Eucharist is not simply a nice “sign” or “symbol” of communion with God, but rather truly is communion with God. (In fact, it is so far from being a mere symbol in the modern sense of that term, that Flannery O’Connor once famously said that “if it is just a symbol, to hell with it!) For the Eucharist is nothing less than the very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, and the “source and summit of the Christian life” (Lumen gentium, 11) Bishop James S. Wall | The documents of Vatican II did not instruct the priest to change his orientation at Mass, and even though priests are allowed to face the people throughout Mass, the official rules or “rubrics” for Mass, which were last updated in 2011, still assume that the priest faces the people at certain times during Mass and not at other times. For example: just before Communion, the priest says “Behold the Lamb of God” and the rubrics say “While facing the people” (Order of Mass #132). Then he is directed to consume the Body of Christ while “facing the altar” (#133). This only makes sense if “facing the people” and “facing the altar” are different directions. Some may interpret ad orientem as “the priest turning his back on the people.” However, the priest’s desire is to turn with the congregation to pray toward God. The vast majority of the prayers of the Liturgy of the Eucharist are directed to God the Father. Mass ad orientem symbolizes the reality of the priest leading all present in prayer vertically to the Father. Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Wichita, KS.
4. Say 'no' to contemporary views of synodality... to say 'yes' to the apostolic order of the Church established by Jesus Christ. The temptation to neglect the Deposit of Faith, not thinking of themselves as guardians but as owners or masters [of it]; or, on the other hand, the temptation to neglect reality, making use of meticulous language and a language of smoothing to say so many things and to say nothing! Pope Francis, Synod of the Family | 1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. | What worries many people about the Synod is that it may be both too democratic and too authoritarian. The concept of liberal authoritarianism is something we are familiar with and Pope Francis’s reported attempt to impose pontifical secrecy on the proceedings of the Synod as well as its decisions looks very much like it. This approach is bad in principle, since openness is integral to the whole thing, and misguided in practice. The Pope’s familiarity with human nature in general and the character of journalists in particular is wanting if he thinks this is even possible. Catholic Herald. | I. THE HIERARCHICAL CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH Why the ecclesial ministry? 874 Christ is himself the source of ministry in the Church. He instituted the Church. He gave her authority and mission, orientation and goal: In order to shepherd the People of God and to increase its numbers without cease, Christ the Lord set up in his Church a variety of offices which aim at the good of the whole body. The holders of office, who are invested with a sacred power, are, in fact, dedicated to promoting the interests of their brethren, so that all who belong to the People of God . . . may attain to salvation. 389. Catechism of the Catholic Church.
5. Say 'no' to ugly churches... to say 'yes' to architecture that embodies the True, the Good and the Beautiful. Cathedrals embody and express the mysteries of the Catholic Faith, offering a tangible representation of the spiritual realm and the divine presence. God is not in the place, but the place is in God. St. Augustine | Beauty is the word which shall be our first. Beauty is the last thing which the thinking intellect dares to approach since only it dances as an uncontained splendor around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another. Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness. No longer loved or fostered by religion, beauty is lifted from its face as a mask, and its absence exposes features on that face which threaten to become incomprehensible to man. We no longer dare to believe in beauty, and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past – whether he admits it or not – can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love. Hans Urs von Balthasar.
6. Say 'no' to heterodox sermons... to say 'yes' to orthodox sermons that enliven the faithful for the salvation of souls. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings. 2 Timothy 4:3 | The Holy Spirit gives a spiritual understanding of the Word of God to those who read or hear it, according to the dispositions of their hearts. By means of the words, actions, and symbols that form the structure of a celebration, the Spirit puts both the faithful and the ministers into a living relationship with Christ, the Word and Image of the Father, so that they can live out the meaning of what they hear, contemplate, and do in the celebration. Catechism 1101 | In Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, preaching is strongly emphasized as the tool that binds us to the preaching of the apostles. The teaching of the apostles “was to be preserved by an unending succession of preachers until the end of time.” Bishops in particular have been given “the sure gift of truth” so that they may preach. Preaching is how the Word of God found in Scripture is made clear. Of all the ways in which the Church seeks to teach and share the Gospel, “the liturgical homily must hold the foremost place.” The Council Fathers make similar statements in other documents as well, even going so far at one point as to say that “the first task of priests as co-workers with the bishops is to preach the Word of God to all” (Presbyterum Ordinis). The Catechism echoes all of this, quoting from Dei Verbum but adding that the homily is “an exhortation to accept this Word [the Scripture just heard] as what it truly is, the Word of God, and to put it into practice” (CCC 1349). The early Church Fathers saw preaching in an even more refined light. To them, it was an art form, not unlike medicine which they also viewed as a more creative pursuit than we tend to see it as today. In his second Oration, St. Gregory of Nazianzus refers to priests as “physicians of the soul.” He says of preaching, “The scope of our art is to provide the soul with wings, to rescue it from the world and give it to God, and to watch over that which is in His image, if it abides, to take it by the hand, if it is in danger, or restore it, if ruined, to make Christ dwell in the heart by the Spirit; and, in short, to deify, and to pour heavenly bliss upon, one who belongs to the heavenly host.” It is hard to imagine preaching alone accomplishing all of this--and to be sure, Gregory means it not in isolation but as a part of the whole practice of pastoral ministry--but what this emphasizes unmistakably is the power of preaching. It is not merely a human activity, but one that, when exercised properly, brings divine healing to those who hear it. Fr. Jonathan Mitchican.