When liturgy is not sacred, it becomes a Judas to the Real Presence Peter Kwasniewski https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/...acred-it-becomes-a-judas-to-the-real-presence Tue Nov 12, 2019 - 8:44 am EST catholic, eucharist, judas iscariot, liturgy November 12, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — In my last article, I spoke of how we have a right and an obligation to seek the worthy worship of God, and that seeking it elsewhere than one’s local parish is not a form of “parish shopping” or “parish hopping,” but the result of a legitimate desire to give the Lord the glory due His Name and to obtain for our souls the nourishment they need. But the counter-argument will always come, fast and furious: “Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist, no matter how bad the liturgy may be, as long as the words of consecration are valid. Are you looking for something more or better than Jesus? You won’t find it. This is all that matters.” It is absolutely true that the Lord will be present under the forms of bread and wine whenever the words of consecration are pronounced by a validly ordained priest who intends to confect the sacrament. But this objection misses something very important. Our Lord through His Church has given the liturgy to us for our benefit, for our growth in holiness, not for His (He is already infinitely good and cannot be improved by anything we do), and He becomes present in our midst in order to accomplish this transformation in us wayfarers, since it is already accomplished in the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. The external form of the liturgy in all its details must prepare the souls of the faithful for the working of the Holy Spirit and remain ever transparent to this work of salvation. If we cannot get past the opening bars of guitar music or the Hallmark greetings without a groan of weariness or a quick surge of anger, how well disposed can we possibly be to receive the Lord when He comes? It is a thoroughly false asceticism to pretend that one should buck up and suffer everything — including the distortion or demeaning of the worship owed to God! The Church has the duty of leading souls to perfection, not of setting up obstacles to it; her priests have mighty powers, but inflicting harm on their own flocks is not numbered among them. A parish does not serve a lofty penitential calling by punishing its members with a combination of bad taste and ignored rubrics. However much God is present in all places, including dens of Babylonian lions, we are not required to throw ourselves into them each and every Sunday. (If that allusion is lost on anyone, that might be because the new lectionary has excluded the story of Daniel in the lions’ den [Dan. 14:27–42]. It is read every year at the usus antiquior on Tuesday of Passion Week, where it has been read for over a millennium as a parable of the condemnation of the innocent Christ, His abandonment to the powers of death, and His Resurrection and triumph over His enemies.) Speaking in 1988 to the Bishops of Chile, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger addressed these words, which have lost nothing of their relevance: We ought to get back the dimension of the sacred in the liturgy. The liturgy is not a festivity; it is not a meeting for the purpose of having a good time. It is of no importance that the parish priest has cudgeled his brains to come up with suggestive ideas or imaginative novelties. The liturgy is what makes the Thrice-Holy God present amongst us; it is the burning bush; it is the Alliance of God with man in Jesus Christ, who has died and risen again. The grandeur of the liturgy does not rest upon the fact that it offers an interesting entertainment, but in rendering tangible the Totally Other, whom we are not capable of summoning. He comes because He wills. In other words, the essential in the liturgy is the mystery, which is realized in the common ritual of the Church; all the rest diminishes it. Men experiment with it in lively fashion, and find themselves deceived, when the mystery is transformed into distraction, when the chief actor in the liturgy is not the Living God but the priest or the liturgical director. So do not be deterred from a salutary purpose of amendment — to put it more bluntly, leaving your substandard parish for the sake of a better one — by the argument that “the Eucharist is, after all, the Eucharist.” It is for good reason that there has never been in the history of the Church a liturgy of five minutes’ duration comprising only the consecration and distribution of hosts. If we were disembodied intellects capable of fixing our attention immediately and immovably on just one thing, then nothing but the Real Presence would make any difference, and we could institute the aforesaid five-minute liturgy — or for that matter, a fifty-five-minute liturgy of polyester, pop tunes, and pop psychology — because it would make no difference anyway. You’d still “get Jesus.” But the Lord who instituted the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass — the Lord who knows all that is in the heart of man (cf. Jn. 2:24–25), his spiritual needs and yearnings and limitations — wanted to provide nourishment for the whole man on every level of his being, the senses and the intellect, the mind and the heart. He says: “With desire have I desired to eat this Pasch with you” (Lk. 22:15). He has inspired the same holy desire within us: we, too, eagerly long to share the sacred mysteries with Him. The liturgy is intended to nourish us in this holistic and comprehensive way, and to the extent that it impedes or undermines this purpose, it betrays itself and becomes a Judas to the Real Presence of Christ.
I don't see anything there which would render invalid the examples I gave. Nobody knows the intention of the priest. Wearing a clown outfit looks like mockery but that doesn't mean that mockery is the priest's intention. It's the same with the balloon example. Similarly with the Latin Mass, nobody knows the intention of the priest. We have to trust that the priest has the right intention. His irreverence is his sin and his sin doesn't transfer to the faithful in the pews.
None of the first three examples you give would require doing away with the NO Mass. While there is less opportunity for non-conformity to the rubrics of a TLM, there are no guarantees that the priest won't change some part of it. What difference does it make if departures from the rubrics are glaringly obvious if the priest knows that he can get away with it? Overall, the TLM is more reverential but the Ordinary Form of the Mass can also be very reverential. Much depends on the priest and the congregation in both forms of the Mass and much depends on the Bishop's standards. I believe that the worst post-Vatican 11 changes were: turning the altar to face the people the removal of altar rails giving laity, other than altar boys, a role in the sanctuary standing to receive Communion in the hand.
I don't doubt for a minute that Archbishop Lefebvre was a very holy and sincere priest with the best of intentions. That doesn't change the fact that no single Bishop or small group of clergy has the authority to reverse the decisions of a Church Council, otherwise Church Councils would be a waste of time. The Vatican 11 documents can be interpreted in line with past Church teaching. Evidently Archbishop Lefebvre knew that or he wouldn't have signed them. Some future Council or Pope may well clear up any ambiguities in the documents or correct erroneous interpretations.
I have a timely story to share... long but interesting... I was raised a Protestant, spent years in doubt and agnosticism, and through the grace of God found the Catholic faith right around the Easter season this year (Holy Thursday was my first time in a Catholic church.) Long story short, my wife (Baptist background) and daughter have been with me through the RCIA process. (Our confirmation is scheduled for Advent Sunday 12/1. ) Anyway, my wife has been considering joining with me but still had questions about the Eucharist. In tonight's RCIA session there was a visitor (Protestant) who visited our parish from out of town with her Catholic boyfriend or husband and during the Liturgy of the Eucharist she physically saw Christ at the altar and is going through RCIA to convert. My wife is super excited and will be joining with me in two weeks... This is probably the wrong thread but the great news is that the Norvous Ordo mass definitely still has Christ present. (We are in Mount Juliet Tennessee USA)
Wow!!!!! Thank you so much for sharing this. It's so uplifting in these troubled times. God is faithful even when we aren't. Welcome home to His Church.
This is wonderful. Thank you for sharing it. I too have most truly encountered Jesus in the NO although not so dramatically. And I thank Him for it because it is all I have. No TLM nearby.i am so very happy for you and your wife God bless.
That's a most edifying report. Is it just an impression I've got, but this and the great story yesterday from Nigeria have put me wondering whether Our Lord's direct interventions into this world are increasing?
Yes I think the more masks are stripped away and the stark choice is made plain and courageous Catholics are choosing at risk of great suffering even death--that kind of faith draws one so very close to Jesus. It is no surprise He manifests in such power. It is a glimpse of what is coming. At least I pray He will manifest in love and power and drive evil away.
St Thomas mentioned “mimicry or fun’. Clown and balloon masses would fit the ‘fun’ element if not the worse ‘mimicry’ element. I would definitely stay far away from either, for a priest who thinks that such masses are okay hardly inspires one to trust that they have the right intention. +
It's hard to imagine how clowns and balloons and suchlike could be considered in any way respectful, to put it mildly. I think some proponents of this nonsense idiotically think that it attracts the 'youth'. What an insult to young people and how many of them have to be driven away before they realise it's wholly counter-productive? However, I don't think responsibility for this kind of abuse can necessarily be laid upon which format the Mass is in. It has happened in the NO, because this is where the liberals are to be found, but if the TLM was introduced universally, I've no doubt the same bozos would still try it on. I find a simple, no-nonsense NO to be quite edifying. I have no experience of the TLM, not being able to remember it from my childhood and there is none available locally. I agree with Dolours that the reintroduction of the ad orientem, the defeminisation of the sanctuary and the reintroduction of kneeling at the rails for communion would render the NO into a splendid sacrifice. Indeed, the latter two were in situ in the NO for quite a while after its introduction. Less important, but I would like to see the elimination of that cringe-worthy 'sign of the peace'. It's really only for exhibitionists.
All these are important and I feel sorrow that it happened/ are still happening. But apart from the role of laity in the sanctuary, none were actually prescribed in Vatican II documents. All the same, Pope Paul VI himself celebrated the NO mass with all the non-prescribed innovations, with a makeshift altar outside the sanctuary and the high altar covered up. +
Cringeworthy, good choice of adjective Dolours, you are correct in saying that the priest bears the responsibility for the way the Mass is celebrated.
Pope Paul had many progressive tendencies. It appears that he lived to regret them. As I understand it, the Council only advised very limited use of the vernacular. If the recommendations of the Council had been followed, I think there would have been no major problems. The laity within the sanctuary would have been a much more respectful and respectable practice than the free-for-all that it has become. However, there was a hijacking and the Pope of the time was, as you point out, complicit.
This is all why Our Lady has asked us to pray very much for priests. I need to point out again, there has been a dearth of vocations in the Universal Church since the attacks on the Church began. The cloistered vocations have the God-given ministry to intercede for the Church. We must also factor in the descent into sin in the world. When we judge the actions of others, we do not know the disposition of their souls. We do not know if they repented of their sins.
What do they think the Mass is about? An outsider from space would conclude that such actions (name tags) indicate a bunch of people worshipping one another. It is an ill wind that doesn't bring some good. As attendances at Mass continue to decline, people will become too far apart to make this practice convenient. Maybe we might just nod at one another. On second thoughts, that mightn't be such a good idea-they'll have us winking at one another from opposite ends of the pew! I remember a few years ago a priest, whom I had previously thought sane, suggesting we all give one another a hug! Thankfully, I think not a single soul in the church responded and that was very much the end of that. Where on earth do they get these ideas? What are they reading? The mind boggles.
I would like to add that in the 60’s, sodomy was considered a grave perversion. Toward the end of the 60’s and in the early 70’s, a priest from my parish was the Chaplain of the Catholic boys high school next door to our church. He molested 3 or 4 boys and it did not come to light until much later. He’s now defrocked, I think. There was a major shift in values back then. And you always had the people in the pews who were accepting everything. We didn’t see the whole picture then.
Very true, we did accept everything. What a tragedy that so many were victimized before we woke up, and saw the true picture. Sadly, we were hoodwinked.
