I certainly don’t expect to return to my two parishes and celebrate Mass just like this; but I do hope I bring back better skill and habits in prayerfully and in an orderly way, offering the sacrifice. Many parishioners may not realize how much effort it takes for a priest to make offering the Mass seem effortless! Many, sadly, don’t care, or they think they don’t; they think it doesn’t matter very much how carefully and soberly the priest presides. But it does, because the celebrant, by his steadiness, prayerfulness and care, communicates a reverence and seriousness that benefits all. It need not be fussy or (gasp!) "rigid." When it is steady, without constant improvisation, then something wonderful happens–the liturgy itself communicates, and it isn’t all about the priest (or anyone else). It is prayer.
The other thing I want to mention is that when one experiences the liturgy in its fullness, with care and attention to the actual celebration of the liturgy, one discovers the important qualities of the liturgy: it is a unity, from beginning to end (as opposed to a series of things we say and do); it is sober and solemn. These don’t mean sad, or cold; but rather, the prayer is not obtrusive. One person at Mass may find occasion for great joy, another for deep insight, another for profound sorrow and conversion, another simply for consolation. The Mass should not impose any of these on you, but allow you to experience them in communion with God and his people.
Yet again, the liturgy fully celebrated clearly becomes another moment, another place. It is not part of our time and world; it is an escape, a refuge, a sanctuary.
Now, one might ask: is it necessary to do all the full ceremonial, all the "bells and whistles," in order to experience the Mass this way? I think not; but I do think it is necessary to have the proper reference point. Hence the need for a paradigm, a benchmark, not only for the priest, but for all of us. I suspect many, many faithful Catholics come to a solemn, "high" Mass, and they see "the Mass" with lots of "extras," perhaps too many to bear; when one could just as well come to a low-key, early Sunday or daily Mass, and see that, instead, as a Mass that is abbreviated and simplified out of necessity. See the difference?
I may be wrong, but I fear there are many Catholics who, for whatever reason, have been brought to a place where they reject the Mass in its fullness; they consider it an imposition, a violation, a matter of a priest indulging all his personal preferences: "why must we have all this singing? Incense? Latin?" etc.
It is useful and practical to have distinctions between "high" and "low" Mass; but I do think many Catholics are either being deprived, or depriving themselves, if they do not have a meaningful experience of the Mass in its fullness–by meaningful, I mean a lot more than occasional; and I mean, an encounter that is not defensive and belligerent. The cross-armed scowl is not a proper liturgical posture.
In terms of the tiresome-yet-common pre- vs. post-Vatican II way of talking about such things, it is terribly ironic that many think that celebrating the Mass in its fullness, as I have described, is some sort of "pre-Vatican II" thing! The truth is exactly 180 degrees the opposite!
The Mass, before the Council, was widely (not exclusively) celebrated in the "low" fashion, and then with hymnody almost entirely displacing the proper chants. The Council, in seeking to bruit about a reassessment and rediscovery of the liturgy, manifestly called for a very different approach. One example will suffice: when, at my prior parish, I sang the entire Eucharistic prayer, someone said, "oh, that’s like the old days!" (she meant in a good way, but no doubt others do not) — and, of course, prior to the Council, the Eucharistic prayer was rarely spoken out loud, let alone sung!
So what do we do?
Please read the whole thing – I hope Fr. Fox does something with these reflections to get them out to even a wider audience. Because of his position as an "ordinary" (you know what I mean) diocesan parish priest and busy pastor, his words have a weight and rootedness in reality that has its own particular power.
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