I said in a post below about the whole idea of constantly molding and fixing the Mass to shape the perceived "needs" and "character" of the community…"it doesn’t work."

A couple of people took issue with me, which is good. I’ll clarify.

When I say "it doesn’t work," I don’t mean it doesn’t get people in the door or interestest or even give them a nice feeling or some sort of spiritual experience.

What I mean is that it doesn’t effectively communicate the depth and breadth and meaning of the event at the center. It distracts from it. It pulls our attention elsewhere. 

When we go to Mass, we are participating in this global, cosmic miracle of Presence and Redemption. We encounter Him who saves us from our sin, raises us from our fallenness, fills us with grace and love, nourishes us to go out and, in turn, share that Good News, we step, somehow, through time and space into the Heavenly Banquet beyond time and space.

Grinning Jack-o-Lanterns, spiders and dress-up hijinx?

I think my point is best made by juxtaposing the effect of these images with the music, and trying to absorb what the children of the choir are singing about and the context of their faith. Compare and contrast, as I used to write on tests. Compare and contrast.

The reason I don’t like doing this sort of post is because, as my friend Meggan noted below, there is this huge temptation to get judgmental. And there’s an obvious sense of mutual love and care that comes through in this little celebration. So when I post something like this, I really want us to struggle toward a larger point (see Tom Ryan’s excellent comment below, and I’m honored that he took so much time to compose such a post!).

Here is what someone wrote me earlier this evening:

I find that since my children have been born (a boy, 4; another boy, 2; #3, any day now), my wife and I have grown increasingly intolerant of Catholic mediocrity. We are dyed-in-the-wool, cradle Catholics–nothing could ever make us leave, and so we can put up with all kinds of junk.

But, as we raise our kids, we realize that mediocrity can no longer cut it in the absence of coherent subcultures.

Our kids need something more in terms of liturgy, catechesis, community, recreation.

And, if Sunday Mass is dead and ugly (weekday Mass is often much more ‘satisfying’), then we have to struggle all the more to form our children. Their imaginations need to tapped by liturgy that opens up new worlds to them, that touches what is deepest in them; Ratzinger’s reminiscences in Milestones of following Mass in his missal as a little boy hit the nail on the head here.

I may be getting prematurely cranky, but liturgy really is about "Him," not "Us"–or, at least, "Us" only in "Him."

Anyone who has ever loved someone else, knows that adoration–awe and gratitude before a friend, a lover–is the height of that love. It alone makes sacrifice and service not only possible, but inviting. If our worship doesn’t lead to that adoration, then nothing else we do as Christians will bear very much fruit.

I think the passage to which the reader refers is this one, quoted earlier this week by Diogenes at CWN:

Each new book I was given was something precious to me, and I could not dream of anything more beautiful. It was a riveting adventure to move by degrees into the mysterious world of the liturgy, which was being enacted before us and for us there on the altar. It was becoming more and more clear to me that here I was encountering a reality that no one had simply thought up, a reality that no official authority or great individual had created. This mysterious fabric of texts and actions had grown from the faith of the Church over the centuries. It bore the whole weight of history within itself, and yet, at the same time, it was much more than the product of human history. Every century had left its mark upon it. The introductory notes informed us about what came from the early Church, what from the Middle Ages, and what from modern times. Not everything was logical. Things sometimes got complicated, and it was not always easy to find one’s way. But precisely this is what made the whole edifice wonderful, like one’s own home. Naturally, the child I was then did not grasp every aspect of this, but I started down the road of the liturgy, and this became a continuous process of growth into a grand reality transcending all particular individuals and generations, a reality that became an occasion for me of ever-new amazement and discovery. The inexhaustible reality of Catholic liturgy has accompanied me through all phases of life.

Oh, and the other point I wanted to make, one that I have also made before is that the effort expended in "creating" community during Mass reveals a deep lack of understanding of what happens during Mass – that we are brought into communion with God and with each other through Christ. He does it.

Do we trust Him…or not?