Gateway Liturgical Conference

[benedictgal]

Whie I was in St. Louis, I was blessed enough to have found time in my schedule to attend part of the Gateway Liturgical Conference. I made it in time for Morning Prayer, which was presded over by Archbishop Malcolm Rajith, the Secretary to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, who also delivered the keynote address.

These are some of the things he noted in his address:

Rhythm, style and order belong to the art of celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This expresses the role of beauty. He lamented the fact that the word “sacrifice” is not used as often as it should be. He noted that sometimes we fall into horizontalism in the arts when we forget about the divine. When we make the liturgy “man-centered” then we have failed to have a proper understanding of ars celebrandi as it relates to active participation. This active participation is not confined to external participation. He said that in recent times (and this is the line of the conference) that “Wall Street moved into the sanctuary.”

This means that we have turned it into a gathering and a coming together that has little to no relationship to the divine mystery unfolding before us. This makes us forget that we are not the actors of the liturgy. The real actor in the liturgy is God, Himself. Here, he addressed the priests and seminarians in the group:

“We need to be totally absorbed in the priestly action of Christ. We are not the artists. We allow the Lord to be the artist through us. We participate in the order of being. We allow ourselves to be incarnated by Him. He makes us a part of His being and action. We place ourselves in total assimilation with Jesus.

The priest must listen to the word of God intently. He must be obedient to the norms and he most be devout in his celebration of the Mass. The priest and the assembly must understand that we are celebrating Christ’s liturgy…Every priest must realize that he is participating in Christ’s continuous salviffic action and a part of the heavenly liturgy. “

Here is the part that drew a question from me after his address ended:

“The liturgy has to please God. This pleasing sacrifice has to center on the fact of living the Eucharistic dimension (as indicated in Sacramentum Caritatis). The acceptableness of the Sacrifice means that we have to be disposed to the transformation. We have to conform our lives to this divine act. We need to “eucharistify” it and make people aware that this is veritas splendor. When we bring down divineness (in other words, make it horizontal and focus on the community), we destroy the liturgy, the more human we make it and the more destructive it becomes. We need to have a sense of wonder before the divine mysteries of God. “

After his discourse, I asked him how music fits into all of this. I told him that in most parishes, the music has become centered on what the community is doing and not about the sacred mysteries unfolding before us at every Mass. He said that the Congregation has a concern about that, as well. That is why next year, in the early quarter, the Holy See is going to release a document on music that should address the concerns I raised. He thanked for asking that question. Of course, this was done away from the crowd and he spoke off the cuff, but, he told me that he understood my concern.

Now, during his talk, he also observed that, “There can be no ars celebrandi unless the priest is touched by his vocation and faith. If a priest wants to discover Eucharistic piety, he needs to learn it from the saints.”

In my next post, I will cover what he said about the importance of obedience to norms.

 

[benedictgal]

Here is what he said on the issue of Obedience to Norms:

The liturgy is never anyone’s private property No one is permitted to treat the liturgy lightly. It is a treasure given to the Church to be jealously guarded.

The Church is the extended presence of Christ in history. Each time the Church celebrates Mass, the priest celebrates in union with the entire Church. The liturgy is given to the Church. We have to be humble to the action of the Holy Spirit. We have to understand the ‘givenness’ of the Liturgy. It leads us to total assimilation with that. Christ has to take over.

Now here is where the seminarians cheered and some of the laity did not react positively (at least that reaction was made known to me before I left by one of the registrars):

The priest should not make himself the center of the liturgical action. The Mass should be second-nature to the priest.

Facing the people gives temptation to showmanship. (Here he is speaking directly to the priests and seminarians): If you can understand the importance of the Mass, it will humble you because Christ is working through you."

With regard to the showmanship issue, the Archbishop made the case for celebrating ad orientsum. He said that we don’t have to see the celebrant and he doesn’t have to see the people. When this happens, there may be a tendency for him to engage in showmanship because he is trying to impress the faithful. In other words, he becomes the star and the sacrifice is relegated to a secondary activity or even forgotten in the process.

He also noted that this horizontalism leads to informalities like beginning the Mass with a “Good morning/afternoon” instead of with the sign of the Cross. He also said that there was too much greeting going on and non-essential activities. Priests used to pray as they vested. Now, the sacriisty has been reduced to a meet, greet and chat. The seminarians applauded when the archbishop noted that the new compendium on the Eucharist will have the prayers for the priest to pray while he is vesting.

He also noted that the priest needs to make time to pray before and after Mass. He said that greeting the people has now become more important than praying. He noted that if the priest is going to greet the people before Mass, he should also include come commentary to prepare them for the Holy Sacrifice.

 

[FrDavid96]

Thanks for sharing that.

What gives me the most hope was the enthusiasm of the seminarians (as you’ve “reported” it.)

We all know that Rome can issue document after document, and that will not stop individuals from making the Mass into their own private property. This approach has unfortunately failed in the last 40 years–that is to say it has fallen on deaf ears. We have to support and encourage our seminarians and young priests who want to be faithful to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. If we want authentic liturgy, celebrated “in spirit and in truth” we must support them. If we fail in this, then we have no one to blame but ourselves if things continue to get worse; but they’re not getting worse, they’re getting better. Thank God for our seminarians!

 

[benedictgal]

Thanks for sharing that.

What gives me the most hope was the enthusiasm of the seminarians (as you’ve “reported” it.)

We all know that Rome can issue document after document, and that will not stop individuals from making the Mass into their own private property. This approach has unfortunately failed in the last 40 years–that is to say it has fallen on deaf ears. We have to support and encourage our seminarians and young priests who want to be faithful to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. If we want authentic liturgy, celebrated “in spirit and in truth” we must support them. If we fail in this, then we have no one to blame but ourselves if things continue to get worse; but they’re not getting worse, they’re getting better. Thank God for our seminarians!

That’s what I said, too. Their reaction really gave me hope. Unfortunately, it kind of deflated when I got back home and went to daily Mass. My pastor told us that he was going to change the set-up at the room where daily Mass is celebrated. He said that the documents indicated that the people needed to face each other during the Mass, choir style, so he was going to arrange the room accordingly.

This is the exact opposite of what I heard from the archbishop. The Mass is not about us, it’s about immersing ourselves into Christ and being touched by Him. It’s not about my looking across the aisle at the people in front of me. Now, the chapel where we had Morning Prayer was set up choir style, but, I don’t think the folks back then lost any of the significance. Why, why are we having to change the furniture?

 

[Manfred]

We all know that Rome can issue document after document, and that will not stop individuals from making the Mass into their own private property. This approach has unfortunately failed in the last 40 years–that is to say it has fallen on deaf ears.

Father,

In this, thou hast spoken rightly.

It seems to me that a document from Rome is just another opinion paper, and, as long as the parish moves with “the spirit of Vatican II”, and those contributions keep coming, well, why make waves and disturb the sensibilities of the assembly? I would suspect many parish priests don’t even bother to read a document; they send their liturgy coordinators to diocesan “workshops” to get a filtered (sometimes distorted) version of a document’s message. Just once I’d like to see something come down from Rome as a binding order!

[Edited]

benedictgal has picked up rather well what the Roman official stated in St Louis. Would that all liturgy coordinators, at both the diocesan and the parish levels, were as diligent as she!

 

[benedictgal]

I sent my PV and another priest friend of mine an email on what the Secretary to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments said. You are not going to believe this, but, at Mass this afternoon, my PV started going into the issue of the Holy Sacrifice and how the Mass is not about us. Nor does it focus on the self; rather, it should focus on God.

The PV at the Cathedral is also interested in what the Secretary had to say and I will be forwarding my emails to him.

I am also going to share the information with our diocesan director of Adult Religious Education as well as our diocesan Superintendent of Schools. They are both interested in what I learned. But, I wanted to share this with you guys first (after my PV).