Blessing for Special People/Groups

[smndtupidisaftr]

I’m reading through Sacrosanctum Concilium for the first time and I found an interesting part:

1. The liturgy makes distinctions between persons according to their liturgical function and sacred Orders, and there are liturgical laws providing for due honors to be given to civil authorities. Apart from these instances, no special honors are to be paid in the liturgy to any private persons or classes of persons, whether in the ceremonies or by external display.

A common practice that I’ve found in liturgies around my area is to offer some kind of special blessing or attention to, for example, fathers on Fathers Day, mothers on Mothers Day, lay ministers of some sort, altar servers, the choir, birthdays, etc. It always nagged me that a celebration where we are supposed to be worshipping God gets to clapping for people or celebrating people in some way. I guess Church fathers felt the same way, which justifies my refusal to clap during these displays.

Any comments? I thought this was interesting.

 

[MarkThompson]

I’m reading through Sacrosanctum Concilium for the first time and I found an interesting part:

A common practice that I’ve found in liturgies around my area is to offer some kind of special blessing or attention to, for example, fathers on Fathers Day, mothers on Mothers Day, lay ministers of some sort, altar servers, the choir, birthdays, etc. It always nagged me that a celebration where we are supposed to be worshipping God gets to clapping for people or celebrating people in some way. I guess Church fathers felt the same way, which justifies my refusal to clap during these displays.

Any comments? I thought this was interesting.

I think this is taking it rather out of context. The reference to “liturgical laws” about “honors to be given to civil authorities” has to do with the provisions in the old form of the rite for things like specially incensing a king or president. The official commentary from the Sacred Congregation of Rites on this paragraph of the Constitution on the Liturgy (54 A.A.S. 884 (1964); my translation) makes it clear that the prohibition described here has to do with preventing classism and promoting the appearance of equality among the faithful:
34. Individual bishops, or, if it seems appropriate, regional or national bishops’ conferences, are to take care that the prescript of the sacred Council forbidding special honors for private persons or social classes, whether in ceremonies or by external display, be carried out in practice.

1. Henceforth, let pastors not fail to work with prudence and charity so that in liturgical actions, and especially in the celebration of the Mass and the administration of the Sacraments and sacramentals, the equality of the faithful may shine outwardly, and moreover any sort of special advantage be avoided.
   This just does not have very much to do with, say, recognizing mothers during the homily on Mothers’ Day, or asking for applause at the end of Holy Week to thank the choir for all its work. Nor does it appear to be the case that the concern underlying this paragraph was a sense that such recognition would be unseemly during Mass in the way you suggest (“we are supposed to be worshipping God”), only that displays of the kind at issue can foster, or at least reveal, social inequality. I would have to guess that practices of the type that motivated this paragraph of SC, relating mostly to class-driven social honors, simply can’t be conceived of in the society of 2010’s America, and that practices of the type you are discussing – be they quaint, distracting, or pernicious – are not really the subject matter that is being dealt with here.