I’ve heard it, you’ve heard it, we’ve all heard it: clapping during mass. I know one or two priests who encourage it (to express appreciation for the choir or to pay tribute to an usher turning 80) but sometimes it just happens, even at the most reverent of liturgies.

Now a clapper is ‘fessing up, and sounding off, in Catholic Exchange:

Whenever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of the liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment.

The above words were penned by our Holy Father Pope Benedict the XVI, (then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) on p. 198 of his book entitled The Spirit of the Liturgy. I first read this book before our Holy Father became pope. The book did three things to me. First, it made me acutely aware that there was much about the meaning of the liturgy to which I was blind. Second, it deepened my love for the liturgy. Third, it put me in conflict with respect to how I needed to approach Mass. One area of conflict was in clapping at Mass.

Having read Cardinal Ratzinger’s words on clapping, I wondered how I could continue to clap at Mass in good conscience. As one who has been to Masses where there was clapping for just about everyone, from musicians, lectors, altar servers and church decorators to priests giving homilies and lay people giving testimonies, I began to wonder why we clap at Mass at all.

Some liturgical clapping proponents claim we clap because Psalm 47:1 tells us to clap: “All you peoples, clap your hands….“ But we Catholics do not interpret scripture independently. We look to Holy Mother Church, and her 2,000 years of teaching, to ensure our interpretation is authentic. The documents on the liturgy (the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, Liturgiam Authenticum, and Redemptionis Sacrmentum) do not call for clapping at the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. They call for reverence.

Rome wants irreverence at Mass to a stop. “…let everyone do all that is in their power to ensure that the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist will be protected from any and every irreverence…” (Redemptionis Sacramentum 183). The key question is this: is clapping a reverent action, or does clapping break the liturgical spirit of reverence which Rome is calling us to protect?

Check the link for more. What do you think?

H/T, btw, to the venerable Fr. Z.