“All stand”

Third of four short (ish) posts inspired by Going to Church in Medieval England, published in late August by Yale University Press. 

You’re super excited! I know!

First longer post. Second short post, on distribution of blessed, not consecrated bread outside of Mass. Third, on the “Sabbath Christ” imagery on church walls.

Third – on liturgical participation.

Of course, the whole book is about that subject, giving an excellent, clarifying overview of how Catholics experienced faith and, indeed, connection to the Lord and to the entire Body of Christ in an era when (gasp!) the Mass was in Latin, few people received Communion more than once a year and during liturgies, most lay people were not able to even really see what was going on in what we now call the sanctuary.

There’s a lot of that. For a broader look, we know to turn towards Eamon Duffy, whose academic career has bee mostly about dispelling the Reformation-generated myths about how terrible medieval English Christianity was, how much the People yearned! For Reformation!

What interests me here, though is something just a touch different. Basically, the regulation of the laity’s liturgical responses – or lack thereof.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? That since the focus and, frankly, burden of action was on clerical shoulders – that frequently-derided sense of a “drama” happening on the altar to which the laity were “merely” spectators – the laity’s behavior, beyond normal respect and decorum, really didn’t matter much.

Which leads me, before I offer you a quote from Orme’s book, to reflect on the direction of post-Conciliar liturgical reform, which has been offered in the name of getting us all involved and helping us understand and experience the liturgy as the “work of the people” (a worthy goal, the goal of the entire 20th century Liturgical Movement) – but have ended up, it seems to me, to be quite often more about Liturgical Police barking orders at congregations about their behavior or endlessly discussing – in print, online or at their (I repeat myself) endless meetings – what the congregation “should be doing.”

If you’ve been sentient for the past forty – or even twenty years – you know how this has gone:

• Celebrants ordering the congregation to repeat the response more loudly or enthusiastically – “I can’t hear you!”
• Musicians doing the same.
• Debates about kneeling and standing. Kneeling’s so medieval, you know. We stand because we are an Easter People and we have the dignity of the People of God. We’re not subservient.
• EVERYBODY stand! EVERYBODY kneel! NOBODY kneel!
• Bow before receiving Communion? Genuflect?
• Hold hands during the Lord’s prayer?
• Pray in the Orans position?
• Genuflect before entering a pew? No! You idiot! We moved the tabernacle into the side chapel! You just bow now!
• EVERYBODY DO THESE THINGS AT THE SAME TIME.
• NOBODY DO THEM AND STOP SHOWING OFF.

As I have said many times – if you go to an Eastern Catholic liturgy, an Orthodox liturgy – or heck, if you even go to Mass in Continental Europe or Latin or Central American countries – you pick up a completely different, more relaxed, tolerant vibe: people wandering in and out, taking various postures during Mass, scrumming for Communion.

It extends to expectations in Traditional Latin Mass communities as well. When you look at photos from celebrations of the TLM in Europe – for example, from today, in St. Peter’s of the Mass from the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage – there are some women wearing veils or other head coverings, but just as many or more are not, and you see your fair share of women in slacks or even jeans as well.

Why is it that Americans, We the People, all about our individual rights and privileges, are such shrill and heavy-handed authoritarians about liturgical behavior?

What are we trying to compensate for?

There were four major postures in church: standing, sitting, kneeling, and prostrating oneself on the ground. All of these were done by the clergy in the chancel, so that the laity were not required to do anything different in kind, and most of what they did was not prescriptive. Liturgical texts had virtually no instructions for them. It is likely, when there were seats or if people brought their own stools, that they sat on arrival and that women at least did so during sermons. Those with seats may have sat during the daily Office of matins and evensong like Gawain and his host, and at mass during the reading of the epistle and while the announcements were made. Sitting for the elderly and infirm, rather than standing or kneeling, must surely have been condoned. Prostration was mainly associated with the practice of ‘creeping to the cross’ on Good Friday, when people venerated a standing cross by abasing themselves on the ground. It was done too by those who had just married. They were taken to the steps of the high altar and prostrated themselves while prayers and a blessing were said over them.Very likely prostration was done by pious people at other times if there was room. That leaves the two most frequent postures: standing and kneeling or bowing the knee (genufection).

Standing must have been one of the commonest practices in early centuries if we presume that there was little seating and may, as has been suggested, have been done by men when seating was becoming usual for women. Once seating grew to be common, it was more necessary to encourage people to stand at significant points in the services, although there was not complete agreement as to when. John Mirk, writing in the late fourteenth century, envisaged people kneeling for most of the time and standing only for the gospel reading. A more detailed source of that period, the guide to the mass known as The Lay Folks’ Mass Book, told people to stand six times during mass. These were at the beginning, the reading of the gospel, the offertory, from Sursum corda until the Sanctus, at the Paternoster said by the priest after the consecration, and at the post-communion prayer towards the end of theservice. Richard Whitford in 1530–1 suggested standing at the beginning which he extended up to Gloria in excelsis, the gospel, the preface before the Sanctus, and the Paternoster. He added the reading of the gospel of John, In principio, that came after mass and the reception of the chalice of unconsecrated wine after taking communion at Easter. But he was flexible, saying ‘stand, if you may conveniently do so’. (173-4)

….Worshippers were certainly meant to be spiritually involved, to be more than spectators. But they were freer to follow a path of their own than would be the case after the Reformation. The chancel screen removed them from close contact with the service beyond. The Latinity of the service and the modest number of places where their interaction was required enabled them to say the rosary, read the Hours of the Virgin, or use a handbook to the mass while the service was in progress. The Reformation, as we shall see, would greatly increase the instructive aspect of services. But in doing so it would require the attention of the congregation in a more absolute and directed way than had been the case hitherto. (254)