Hi all, I’ve just came back from a charismatic community. That was my first experience with any charismatic and I’ve heard some horrible stories beforehand, but nothing major happened-- until the last mass on the last day, in which we had a drama/dance instead of the penitential rite, and had a rather elaborate sending away/blessing/praying things before the actual blessing part of the mass.
In my point of view that was completely unnecessary, since the same thing could have happened after/before mass with the same effect. But what are the church regulations about this?
Also, I remember playing Joseph when I was young in a play on Christmas Eve mass alongside the Gospel. Are these two examples of different nature? Are they allowed?
The Rites of the Church, specifically as they pertain to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, should not be amended.
According to Redemptionis Sacramentum:
[11.] The Mystery of the Eucharist “is too great for anyone to permit himself to treat it according to his own whim, so that its sacredness and its universal ordering would be obscured”.27 On the contrary, anyone who acts thus by giving free rein to his own inclinations, even if he is a Priest, injures the substantial unity of the Roman Rite, which ought to be vigorously preserved,28 and becomes responsible for actions that are in no way consistent with the hunger and thirst for the living God that is experienced by the people today. Nor do such actions serve authentic pastoral care or proper liturgical renewal; instead, they deprive Christ’s faithful of their patrimony and their heritage. For arbitrary actions are not conducive to true renewal,29 but are detrimental to the right of Christ’s faithful to a liturgical celebration that is an expression of the Church’s life in accordance with her tradition and discipline. In the end, they introduce elements of distortion and disharmony into the very celebration of the Eucharist, which is oriented in its own lofty way and by its very nature to signifying and wondrously bringing about the communion of divine life and the unity of the People of God.30 The result is uncertainty in matters of doctrine, perplexity and scandal on the part of the People of God, and, almost as a necessary consequence, vigorous opposition, all of which greatly confuse and sadden many of Christ’s faithful in this age of ours when Christian life is often particularly difficult on account of the inroads of “secularization” as well.31
RS also notes that:
[59.] The reprobated practice by which Priests, Deacons or the faithful here and there alter or vary at will the texts of the Sacred Liturgy that they are charged to pronounce, must cease. For in doing thus, they render the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy unstable, and not infrequently distort the authentic meaning of the Liturgy.
While it does not specifically make any references to the Penitential Rite, it is understood that it covers the entire gamut of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Furthermore, the Penitiential Rite has three options, none of which include any sort of dancing.
As far as dancing is concerned, there is no tradition in the West that calls for this kind of activty to occur. Unless you are in a community established in some indigenous missionary land where dance is common to the natives of the territory (i.e., Aztec Indians, African tribes, Aborigines, etc), this should not be occuring within the confines of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Holy See has made that perfectly clear.
Regarding the issue of the Christmas play imbedded within the Gospel, this is also highly ilicit:
[63.] Within the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, the reading of the Gospel, which is “the high point of the Liturgy of the Word”,139 is reserved by the Church’s tradition to an ordained minister.140 Thus it is not permitted for a layperson, even a religious, to proclaim the Gospel reading in the celebration of Holy Mass, nor in other cases in which the norms do not explicitly permit it.141
It is interesting to note that the Church does not allow for things like the Passion Play to usurp the proclamation of the Lord’s Passion, either on Palm Sunday or Good Friday:
- The passion narrative occupies a special place. It should be sung or read in the traditional way, that is, by three persons who take the part of Christ, the narrator, and the people. The passion is proclaimed by deacons or priests, or by lay readers. In the latter case, the part of the Christ should be reserved to the priest.
Thus, there are no allowances for plays to take place alongside the Gospel.
About nativity play… does it help to point out that we still used the gospel? Merely that we had children dressed up and walking around in the church acting out the reading? Oh I wish it was allowed, after all it was only once a year at most… ;p
The problem with the OP’s line of thinking, as I see it, is that if we are not moved by the actual text of the Gospel and need some sort of visual aid, then we have not really grasped the meaning of the story laid out before us. If the proclamation of the Good News does not move our hearts, then we have lost sight of why we are at Mass in the first place. Plays are great outside the confnes of the Mass, but, they have no place in the Holy Sacrifice.
