When Mass makes you angry
About a week ago I wrote a post titled “In Defense of the Novus Ordo“, which was really more an explanation that the things most criticized about the Novus Ordo are optional. Someone in the combox noticed I didn’t really defend the Novus Ordo itself, to which I foolishly responded that I would at some point write a true defense.
Why do I say foolishly? Because I realize that any defense, no matter how well-researched or well-defended, will bring out vicious attacks, including questioning the validity of the Novus Ordo, accusations of heresy in Vatican II and conspiracy theories about Masons, Protestants and Paul VI. Nothing denigrates faster than a Catholic blog discussion on the Mass. It has in many ways become the “third rail” of the Catholic blogosphere.
Why is this? Why is it that any discussion of the liturgy so quickly turns into conflict, and all-too-often a quagmire of attacks, uncharitable accusations, and downright un-Christian behavior? I can think of a few reasons.
The Liturgy is important. In academia, they say that arguments are so heated because the stakes are so small. I would argue that the opposite is true about the liturgy: the arguments are so heated because the stakes are so high. The Mass is the most important thing that we as humans do. We are all created for eternal life in heaven, and what will we be doing in heaven? Well, if you read the book of Revelation, you see that heaven is one big Mass. So it is quite understandable that people take it quite seriously.
How we celebrate the Liturgy is important. How we celebrate the liturgy matters as well. The Old Testament condemns worship to false gods, but it also condemns false worship to the true God. For example, in Leviticus 10:1-2, the sons of Aaron presented “unlawful fire” to the Lord and as a result, they were consumed by that fire. Furthermore, the excruciating detail in which the Old Testament explains how proper liturgy is to be performed shows that it is not only vital that we worship God, but that we do it properly. So liturgical debates are important.
The Liturgy is a human-divine activity. The Mass was instituted by Christ and it’s development has been guided by the Holy Spirit. In it, we worship God in the way He has asked to be worshiped. However, the liturgy is also a human activity which is shaped by human elements, including culture, taste, and ability. While maintaining the core structure of the Mass, we have a great range of details we can adjust. Just look at the difference between the Mass of the Latin Rite and the Divine Liturgies of the Eastern Churches: they are the same underlying liturgy, but are quite different in their execution. Because it is so influenced by human factors, however, there can be strong disagreements about what is appropriate and helpful to proper worship and what is not. It is often difficult to separate in our minds between what is contrary to true worship and what is just not our taste.
The Liturgy is our most common activity. And by “common” I mean both “frequent” and “related to the whole”. All practicing Catholics participate in the Mass at least once a week – we are never more than seven days separated from it. Furthermore, the Mass is what unites the Church universal: whereas there might be diverse spiritual practices from Europe to Africa to Latin America, we all celebrate the same Mass. Because of this, we are constantly reminded if a Mass is celebrated poorly and we know what a great impact this can have on the Church Universal.
Therefore, I am very empathetic with those who lament the direction (both figuratively and literally) liturgical worship has gone in the past 40 years. I have been fortunate to have been a member of three separate parishes (in three separate dioceses) that all celebrated the Mass without any egregious abuses or flippancy that you can see in some American parishes. But I can understand how someone who week-in and week-out experiences such Masses would become discouraged and even angry over such a state of affairs. I think Pope Benedict has made it clear that he too shares these concerns and is working to restore a more reverent atmosphere to the celebration of the Mass.
But (and you knew there would be a “but”, didn’t you?) even if we are angry, this does not justify sinful responses. St. Paul tells us, “In your anger do not sin…do not give the devil a foothold” (Eph. 4:26-27). Note the second part: by letting our anger lead to sin we are giving the devil a foothold to our soul. It doesn’t matter if that anger was justified or not, either way the devil wins. When we lash out at liturgical abuses or even Church-mandated changes which we think are unwise, we lose twice: first, the devil wins a victory over us and second, it is highly unlikely we will convince anyone of our position. Nothing is more self-defeating than someone who argues in anger.
It is unlikely that Satan is going to be able to convince a practicing Catholic to abandon going to Mass. So he won’t try. Instead he will tempt us to make Mass a near occasion of sin. But we don’t have to let that happen. Even if everything around us is loopy, that doesn’t mean that we have to respond in anger. Instead, it is a wonderful opportunity to pray and offer sacrifices (like the sacrifice of enduring the loopiness) for those who are abusing or denigrating the liturgy. We can turn the devil’s temptations into opportunities for grace. And who knows? Maybe our prayers and sacrifices will lead others to a deeper appreciation of the solemnity of the Mass.
Oh, and I haven’t written that defense of the Novus Ordo yet; I’m waiting until the full-body armor I ordered arrives.
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I largely agree with your arguments. It is important that all Catholics who love the traditional liturgical patrimony of Mother Church maintain a degree of calm and peace about the liturgical madhouses our parish churches have become. As a strong lover and vociferous defender of the Mass of Blessed John XXIII myself, I must admit that I am tempted to despair and anger when I assist at the Mass of Paul VI, but whenever those feelings come as I hear the reformed Mass, I remember something that Deacon Bill Steltemeier of EWTN told me when I asked him a question about the reverent celebration of the sacred liturgy: “Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity: no matter what they can’t take that from you.” His words give me much consolation as I suffer through female altar boys, eucharistic ministers, modernist music, communion in the hand, versus populum, horse blanket chasubles, dynamic equivalence, lectors, and the like. As long as we remember that, we’re good.
It is important to remember that Heaven will be Mass…but do people really realize that? In my experience, they don’t.
I think if they did, there would not be so much work put into bending and breaking rules or arguing about the rules.
I have seen the occasional, beautiful NO Mass, and I revel in those memories, because they are so few.
As something of a liturgy zealot (at least I’ve been referred to as such in these parts) it took me a long time to get the calm I needed to be effective…and charitable.
I applaud the Pope for putting such work into trying to stem the tide of loopiness.
Lord, just how patient are we expected to be??
By the help of God’s grace, that is what enables me to persevere.
About a week ago I wrote a post titled “In Defense of the Novus Ordo“, which was really more an explanation that the things most criticized about the Novus Ordo are optional.
As Martin Mosebach wisely notes in his impressive work, The Heresy of Formlessness, the fact that reverence is “optional” in the new Mass is precisely one of the greatest arguments against it.
You’d also do well not to paint traditionally-minded Catholics with too broad a brush here. The suspicions of Masonic plots, the noteworthyness of Paul VI’s own admission that the new Mass was intended to be more comfortable an experience for Protestants, etc., all have substantive grounding in fact behind them. Whether they have been exaggerated by some in the “traditionalist” camp is open to debate, but the questions themselves are not imaginary or made from whole cloth.
I’ve seen the arguments by both sides, and from an intellectual and theological standpoint I’d argue that the argument that the traditional liturgy of the Church is a more reverent experience that is more psychologically oriented toward God and has a track record of success in nurturing saints is undeniable. The polemics used by many in the traditionalist camp leave much to be desired, but the merits of their positions are hard to dispute.
One liturgy was formed over centuries, shaped by saints, and infused with the mind of the Church. The other was formed by a committee, designed with ecumenical rather than pedagogical purposes in mind, and has coincided with the greatest decline in the Catholic Faith that has perhaps ever occurred in the history of our religion.
I struggle to understand how anyone who is intellectually honest can continue to have discussions that equate the two liturgies. We may be, for pastoral reasons, stuck with the Novus Ordo for the foreseeable future, but the mature Catholic who wants a deeper, less anthropomorphized and more rooted liturgical experience (that also shares much more in common with all other approved rites of the Church) goes to the never-abrogated Gregorian rite.
If it were simply a matter of taste, the point would be moot, and both Masses would be fine. But as Catholics, we have always believed in a hierarchy of goods, and in the principles of objective truth and beauty. With those standards applied, I struggle to understand why this continues to be a debate.
The liturgy can be likened to music. Some prefer jazz, some prefer country, some prefer classical, and many prefer rap.
It is simple, really.
Now, I prefer classical, and that colors my first choice of liturgy. But those who prefer rap music dominate the Church, and have effected changes in the liturgy to reflect their taste.
The Liturgy is not “taste”. The Liturgy is the ‘work of God’.
Do and say positive things to bring about change. A lot of good happens when lots of people do lots of little things to improve a situation. Suggestions: Subscribe to and then quickly read and pass around good Catholic publications. Join the choir and recommend good music. Encourage young male family members and their buddies to be altar servers (and reward them for it). Quietly serve on parish committees and calmly use your vote to effect changes. Submit kind, intelligent letters to the editor of the diocesan newspaper. Get permission to practice on the organ in an empty church and fill the space with beautiful Catholic music–someone’s going to hear it…and like it. Etc., etc.!
You did give a defense of the NO last week; in the face of a claim that it caused undesirable effect X, you said “the NO does X less than the traditional rite”. The guy who responded to you said, in effect, that he wanted you to defend the NO against more claims. To want this is fine, but any reasoned contrary response to some critique is a defense, and you gave one.
It seems to me what you want to give is a encomium of the NO, or, in NO terms, you want to have a “celebration” of the goodness of the NO. There are hints, however, that what you actually want to make is a case for the superiority of the NO, which of course will cause impassioned response.
So if you want to give an encomium of the NO, then make it. No one can reasonably fault you for saying nice things about mass when your express purpose is only to say nice things about mass. If you want to make a case for the superiority of the NO (which is what you were doing in the comments of your last post) then lay out your case, but don’t call it a “defense”- you are in fact on offense.
In this discussion I would ask that we remember, while the mass is the work of God – as the Church’s work must always strive to be – it is ALSO (in fact, in etymology and in the Church’s teaching) the work of the people. I appreciate the recognition that the Novus Ordo has, at it’s root, the fundamental liturgical components of more ancient forms of the mass, and also the recognition that this liturgy is far too often sidelined by excessive performance or silliness. Our liturgy is both ancient and new – and there is bad on both ends of that spectrum when the old is stale and the new consists of the latest fad. At its best though, the living faith of our forebears speaks in new ways the Good News of Christ, made flesh in the liturgy. To the earlier charge that the NO mass is “anthropomorphized,” I would call it “Incarnational” – or at least that it seeks to be, and at its best it achieves this. My wish is that it would be celebrated well more consistently and in more places. With the current debate over the new translations, I don’t think that more verbose, technical translation actually has the effect of bringing the human soul to a transcendent experience of worship. It could, but I don’t think any form of the mass, in itself, can guarantee this result. The beautifully ornate and poetic can become empty theater as easily as the more simple rites of the NO mass too often wind up lacking (or working against) a sense of reverent prayer and transcendence. In the end, I think that either rite of the mass must be carried out in a way that seeks to praise God and involve His Church in His divine life, sanctifying and building the Kingdom. If we don’t celebrate these masses in this way, we risk the condemnation leveled by God through Amos. Whether NO or Trindentine or Gregorian mass, God may despise our festivals and not delight in our solemn assemblies if we don’t keep as our focus the worship of God and let the liturgy shape us more fully into a community of disciples that participates in the building of the Kingdom, loving God and our neighbor and doing justice.
Dear Mr. Skojec,
“… the mature Catholic who wants a deeper, less anthropomorphized and more rooted liturgical experience … goes to the never-abrogated Gregorian rite.”
It’s strange: my conception of the “mature Catholic” centers around the image of the Blessed Mother kneeling before the one and only Sacrifice of the Mass as it was offered for, and in the midst of, the most abusive and irreverent people we can imagine. Wasn’t it the immature Catholics who chose to absent themselves from that Mass at Calvary because they couldn’t bear to see the suffering that Christ chose to endure for our salvation, even for those who abused Him?
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