Yes, this is a frequent theme of mine, but I had a conversation recently that brought it to mind once again.
Someone I know recently went to Mass in another part of the country and returned with a tale.
If you get around, it’s not an unfamiliar tale.
In sum: a well-intentioned, friendly mess.
Mass began with not only a command for visitors to make themselves known, but then a round of applause for those visitors. The homily was thirty platitude-filled minutes long, and Mass was peppered with three or four mini-homilies as well, which was the reason for this Mass being ninety minutes long: not because of long moments of silence or music but because the celebrant talked a lot at the beginning, the middle and the end. There was some creative wordsmithing during the Eucharistic Prayer (not during the consecration, but still.) The music was typical 80’s Gather catalog, with some crossed wires and confusion between celebrant and musicians at the end (that happens, no matter when or where, of course).
There was more, but more specifics aren’t really the point.
The point is when the expectation that the “best” liturgy expresses and builds on the spirit of the present moment, the “needs” of the community and gifts and personalities of the celebrant and other ministers – this is the kind of experience you’re going to end up with – a lot.
It’s also what you’re going to get when the ceremony, formality and mutually-understood objective meaning of the ritual is stripped away, but those involved still have the intuition they need to make it “special” – because they see the bored faces in front of them – so they seek to enforce the sacredness of the moment…by explaining how meaningful it is. Over and over.
The short version is that the reforms of the Second Vatican Council emerged from (in part) a conviction that traditional, rigid, rubric conscious liturgy was an obstacle to authentic faith. It focused, it was believed, the congregation’s attention outward and subtly encouraged the faithful to let exterior elements from the celebrant and other ministers, the environment, and the words and gestures of the liturgy itself do the spiritual heavy lifting, as it were. Just being present was enough. “Active participation” and conscious engagement was sincerely hoped to lead to deeper faith and therefore more active faith-filled participation of Catholics in the world.
(Yes, that is only part of it. I understand this. Every blog post that touches on this cannot devolve into a complete excavation of the Liturgical Movement and its fruit. You get that, right?)
So the stripping, the reformulation, the creation of the New Mass. (Not an insult – that’s what they called it at the time, and it was definitely intended to have a negative connotation) was about creating space for the Body of Christ to be more conscious of the Presence of Christ in its unique midst.
Over the decades, in evaluating this, people have focused on the subsequent banality and potential for abuse, as well as the theological and spiritual consequences.
What I’ve written about, and what this person’s experience highlighted for me yet one more time, was the inevitable consequence of devaluing formality and the universal in liturgy and elevating spontaneity and the local, in insisting that the former is inimical to spiritual authenticity and the latter is evidence of it.
In a framework in which the power of a liturgical act is said to stem from how well it reflects the concerns and identity of the local community, and plenty of room is left for those concerns and that identity to be expressed, what is bound to happen is that space is filled in and the liturgy is shaped by, well, the people shaping it. The presider, the musicians, the other powers who have a voice in that community and rise to speak for it and have been assured that this is their gift, talent, vocation and charism. This, of course, being the risk of being in a position of any type of religious authority, formal or informal, ordained or lay, employed or volunteer, IRL or on the internet: the confusion of one’s own will with God’s.
In short, it’s a playground for ego, ready to run wild, dominate and bully, if not continually subject to discernment.
It’s ironically, also not quite the evangelistic and pastoral flex you think it is.
Yes, I have written about this before, several times. I’ll link to those in a minute.
But I felt it was worth writing about today because, well, I don’t hear a lot of people talking about this from this angle, and I think it’s important.
Insisting on say the black and do the red is a superficial command unless it is understood within the context of what actual pastoral care is, the duty of all church leadership, in whatever context, to diminish the ego and put Christ at the center of worship, not yourself or your priorities.
More:
It’s not the reverence, it’s the ego.
How many times have we seen this, in liturgies and in general church life, when leaders, both lay and clerical, have centered their efforts, words and plans on particular agendas and causes, while in front of them sits a congregation gathered with their broken hearts, fears about life and death and all of it, addictions, disappointments, temptations, frightening diagnoses and exhaustion – wondering why they can’t just pray?
This is good. Not sure if I completely agree or even understand all of it. I studied 6 years in the seminary and among other things, became a spiritual director. I learned a lot about the hierarchy, etc. A small part of my studies was a homilitics class. My experience is that clergy don’t give enough focus to this. There are less than 5 priests in my life (67), that can take the gospel, reflect on it, translate to our world, give their homily, deliver the message and nail it home in a way the congregation can understand, and in about 3 minutes. Why so few can do that? I always say I can prepare a better homily than many priests. Why is that? I’m not even sure I can sit through a 90-minute Mass. LoL.
Just sharing some random comments.
Thanks,,,
I didn’t know this kind of thing still goes on. I have even witnessed homilies that were too long in the so-called traditional Byzantine rite because the priest had agenda. Dominicans and homiletics professors are probably the only ones I have witnessed who could preach the Gospel succinctly and effectively.