Is this a liturgical abuse?

[benedictgal]

I find it quite OK. I have experienced many similar examples in the parish in Germany, where I currently belong. It has been always a special Sunday mass for children and their parents. I don’t see anything wrong in it. The same refers to the priest shaking hands with people.

However, the children have no business being up in the altar with the priest as though they were concelebrants. The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has already spoken out against this ilicit practice.

Pawel, with all due respect, what you seem to not understand is that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is not some free form exercise in creativity. It is a gift that must be received with obedience, reverence and respect. It is not our toy to do with as we will.

 

[Pawel_J]

No - it’s not ok. There’s a good article HERE from EWTN explaining why it’s not an acceptable practice. A reply given by Fr John Hardon to the same question is given HERE - a more succinct version of the EWTN response. I suppose the bottom line is that there is a real danger that such arrangements, well intended though they may be, can cause confusion as to what exact role the laity and the priest should have in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Similar abuses occur, for example, where the priest would invite the congregation to raise their hands during the Consecration - as if they’re concelebrating the Holy Mass or as if they have power to confect the sacrament…it’s all down to blurred boundaries or blatantly overstepping boundaries.

I think you are exaggerating here a bit. You are trying to make the act of abuse from something very innocent in fact. I have seen such “abuses” many times in my life, at masses in various countries. The reception has always been warm and positive.

 

[benedictgal]

I think you are exaggerating here a bit. You are trying to make the act of abuse from something very innocent in fact. I have seen such “abuses” many times in my life, at masses in various countries. The reception has always been warm and positive.

Just because something makes a person feel warm and fuzzy all over does not make it right.

 

[Pawel_J]

However, the children have no business being up in the altar with the priest as though they were concelebrants. The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has already spoken out against this ilicit practice.

Pawel, with all due respect, what you seem to not understand is that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is not some free form exercise in creativity. It is a gift that must be received with obedience, reverence and respect. It is not our toy to do with as we will.

In fact, my understanding of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass must be a bit different. You want to see the Mass as a kind of theatrical event, where the priests perform on stage and the passive audience is allowed merely to watch and listen. This is leading us straight to complete alienation of clergy and secular people. Priests trying to incorporate the worshippers to actively act in the mass are being criticized or even condemned. This is the wrong way. I do not care if the current regulations allow such practice or not. This is not my problem. Such regulations are not everlasting. They have been always changed and they will be changed many times more. They are made by people and they can be changed by people. Only the Laws of God are unalterable.

 

[benedictgal]

In fact, my understanding of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass must be a bit different. You want to see the Mass as a kind of theatrical event, where the priests perform on stage and the passive audience is allowed merely to watch and listen. This is leading us straight to complete alienation of clergy and secular people. Priests trying to incorporate the worshippers to actively act in the mass are being criticized or even condemned. This is the wrong way. I do not care if the current regulations allow such practice or not. This is not my problem. Such regulations are not everlasting. They have been always changed and they will be changed many times more. They are made by people and they can be changed by people. Only the Laws of God are unalterable.

As I see it, your view is incorrect, Pawel. The Mass is not some free form exercise in creativity where we treat the Holy Sacrifice as we please.

This is what Archbishop Malcolm Ranjinth, the former secretary to the CDWDS, noted in a speech I was privileged to personally hear:

The pope, in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy, defines actuosa participatio as a call to a total assimilation in the very action of Christ the High Priest. It is in no way a call to activism, a misunderstanding that spread widely in the aftermath of Sacrosanctum Concilium. Stated Cardinal Ratzinger: “what does it [active participation] mean…? Unfortunately the word was very quickly misunderstood to mean something external, entailing a need for general activity, as if as many people as possible, as often as possible, should be visibly engaged in action” (The Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, p. 171).

We know that in many places this led to the amalgamation of the sanctuary with the assembly, the clericalization of the laity and the filling up of the sanctuary with the noisy and distracting presence of a large number of people. One could say that virtually Wall Street moved into the sanctuary. But was that really what the Council Fathers advocated? Cardinal Ratzinger does not think so. For him, “the real ‘action’ in the liturgy in which we are all supposed to participate is the action of God Himself. This is what is new and distinctive about Christian liturgy: God Himself acts and does what is essential” (ibid, p. 173).

This kind of participation in the very action of Christ, the High Priest, requires from us nothing less than an attitude of being totally absorbed in Him. Says the cardinal “the point is that, ultimately, the difference between the actio Christi and our own action is done away with. There is only one action, which is at the same time His and ours — ours because we have become ‘one body and one spirit ‘with Him” (ibid p. 174).

Active participation, thus, is not a giving way to any activism but an integral and total assimilation into the person of Christ who is truly the High Priest of that eternal and uninterrupted celebration of the heavenly liturgy.

…Obedience to Norms
As Pope John Paul II stated in Ecclesia de Eucharistia, “Liturgy is never anyone’s private property, be it of the celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated”; and so “no one is permitted to undervalue the mystery entrusted to our hands; it is too great for anyone to feel free to treat it lightly and with disregard for its sacredness and its universality” (EE 52).

Indeed, liturgy is a treasure given to the Church, which is to be jealously guarded. This is so also because it is the actio Christi realized in and through the Church, which is His own Body, in its three-fold extension — the Church Victorious, the Church Purifying and the Church Militant.

Thus every liturgical act has a meta-cosmic extension. Besides, it is in and with the Church that Christ realizes His priestly office, making the liturgy profoundly ecclesial, in the sense of the whole Church. It is the whole Church which celebrates liturgy each time a priest does so with his own local community

What you seem to promote is something that goes against what the Church holds to be the norms.

 

[NPC]

I think you are exaggerating here a bit. You are trying to make the act of abuse from something very innocent in fact. I have seen such “abuses” many times in my life, at masses in various countries. The reception has always been warm and positive.

No, I am most certainly not exaggerating. I and every other member of the Catholic faithful has a right to have the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass celebrated according to the laws and regulations set forth by Mother Church. Furthermore, I have a right, as has every other Catholic, to raise concerns with priests, bishops, etc. about such abuses when and where they occur.

You should note the following points that are made in Redemptionis Sacramentum regarding abuses:

[169.] Whenever an abuse is committed in the celebration of the sacred Liturgy, it is to be seen as a real falsification of Catholic Liturgy. St Thomas wrote, “the vice of falsehood is perpetrated by anyone who offers worship to God on behalf of the Church in a manner contrary to that which is established by the Church with divine authority, and to which the Church is accustomed”.

[183.] In an altogether particular manner, let everyone do all that is in their power to ensure that the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist will be protected from any and every irreverence or distortion and that all abuses be thoroughly corrected. This is a most serious duty incumbent upon each and every one, and all are bound to carry it out without any favouritism.

[184.] Any Catholic, whether Priest or Deacon or lay member of Christ’s faithful, has the right to lodge a complaint regarding a liturgical abuse to the diocesan Bishop or the competent Ordinary equivalent to him in law, or to the Apostolic See on account of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff. It is fitting, however, insofar as possible, that the report or complaint be submitted first to the diocesan Bishop. This is naturally to be done in truth and charity.

I would also suggest that you look at what the Church says about the idea of participation at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - there is such a thing as inner participation. A bunch of children standing around the altar, apart from not being approved by the Church, is absolutely pointless if the children are not inwardly-actively participating because of their respect for the fact that they are present at a re-presentation of Christ’s Sacrifice on Calvary. When one is truly participating in the Holy Mass by realising the True Sacrifice which is offered before them, NOTHING WHATSOEVER can add one iota to the beauty of the Mass, nor the spiritual benefits that are poured out upon the faithful.

1. Nevertheless, from the fact that the liturgical celebration obviously entails activity, it does not follow that everyone must necessarily have something concrete to do beyond the actions and gestures, as if a certain specific liturgical ministry must necessarily be given to the individuals to be carried out by them. Instead, catechetical instruction should strive diligently to correct those widespread superficial notions and practices often seen in recent years in this regard, and ever to instill anew in all of Christ’s faithful that sense of deep wonder before the greatness of the mystery of faith that is the Eucharist, in whose celebration the Church is forever passing from what is obsolete into newness of life: “in novitatem a vetustate”. For in the celebration of the Eucharist, as in the whole Christian life which draws its power from it and leads toward it, the Church, after the manner of Saint Thomas the Apostle, prostrates herself in adoration before the Lord who was crucified, suffered and died, was buried and arose, and perpetually exclaims to him who is clothed in the fullness of his divine splendour: “My Lord and my God!”

Redemptionis Sacramentum

 

[Lormar]

Perhaps, Pawel J, you need to conform YOUR understanding of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with the Holy Roman Catholic Church’s understanding of It.

 

[Pawel_J]

Dear NPC,
Dear benedictgal,
From the formal point of view you are right. The problem is almost nobody from the laity attending the mass knows the regulations of Redemptionis Sacramentum, because these regulations are not meant for them. They are meant for priests. Priests know them or at least should know them well. Nevertheless, they invite children to stand around the altar. Why? Because they think it is right, it is allowed. They do not change the sequence of the liturgy. They do not change the words they speak. They do not change their movements or gestures while celebrating the mass. They only add something more, something additional, which does not change the essence of the liturgy.They give more color to it.
Do you want to fix everything what is happening during the mass in regulations. Do you want to assign which spirituals are to be sung and in which order? Is it really necessary to regulate everything by law? I wonder if Catholic missionaries in Africa adhere so precisely to Redemptionis Cacramentum?

 

[NPC]

Dear NPC,
Dear benedictgal,
From the formal point of view you are right. The problem is almost nobody from the laity attending the mass knows the regulations of Redemptionis Sacramentum, because these regulations are not meant for them. They are meant for priests. Priests know them or at least should know them well.

The regulations certainly are meant for the laity - the fact that a document is not widely known does notmean that it does not apply to them. There are parts of Redemptionis Sacramentum which pertain specifically to the laity. In fact, this document would be largely pointless if it were not directed at the laity as well as bishops, priests and deacons - after all, in a rural parish with only one priest, who would report abuses, if not the laity?

1. It is not at all the intention here to prepare a compendium of the norms regarding the Most Holy Eucharist, but rather, to take up within this Instruction some elements of liturgical norms that have been previously expounded or laid down and even today remain in force in order to assure a deeper appreciation of the liturgical norms; to establish certain norms by which those earlier ones are explained and complemented; and also to set forth for Bishops, as well as for Priests, Deacons and all the lay Christian faithful, how each should carry them out in accordance with his own responsibilities and the means at his disposal.

Nevertheless, they invite children to stand around the altar. Why? Because they think it is right, it is allowed. They do not change the sequence of the liturgy. They do not change the words they speak. They do not change their movements or gestures while celebrating the mass. They only add something more, something additional, which does not change the essence of the liturgy.They give more color to it.

If priests do know about Redemptionis Sacramentum but yet continue with abuses, then what is needed, I would suggest, is instruction on the significance of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The priest who realises the sacredness of his position to be able to offer the Holy Sacrifice on behalf of the people, or who realises the great wonder of being able to hold the Body and Precious Blood of Our Lord in his hands and being able to give that Precious Body and Blood to the people, knows that there is not one single thing that he can add to the Holy Mass to give it more “life” or “colour”. Certain items, such as music, which are mandated by the Church, can help people to “lift up their hearts to the Lord” - to go to a different plain spiritually - yet, in themselves, they cannot alter the inestimable benefits which come from the Holy Mass.

However, vain actions such as changing the words of the missal, or taking children from the community with which they are supposed to be celebrating the Mass to stand around the altar, have the following causes and effects:

[6.] For abuses “contribute to the obscuring of the Catholic faith and doctrine concerning this wonderful sacrament”. Thus, they also hinder the faithful from “re-living in a certain way the experience of the two disciples of Emmaus: ‘and their eyes were opened, and they recognized him’”. For in the presence of God’s power and divinity and the splendour of his goodness, made manifest especially in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, it is fitting that all the faithful should have and put into practice that power of acknowledging God’s majesty that they have received through the saving Passion of the Only-Begotten Son.

[7.] Not infrequently, abuses are rooted in a false understanding of liberty. Yet God has not granted us in Christ an illusory liberty by which we may do what we wish, but a liberty by which we may do that which is fitting and right. This is true not only of precepts coming directly from God, but also of laws promulgated by the Church, with appropriate regard for the nature of each norm. For this reason, all should conform to the ordinances set forth by legitimate ecclesiastical authority.

[9.] Finally, abuses are often based on ignorance, in that they involve a rejection of those elements whose deeper meaning is not understood and whose antiquity is not recognized. For “the liturgical prayers, orations and songs are pervaded by the inspiration and impulse” of the Sacred Scriptures themselves, “and it is from these that the actions and signs receive their meaning”. As for the visible signs “which the Sacred Liturgy uses in order to signify the invisible divine realities, they have been chosen by Christ or by the Church”. Finally, the structures and forms of the sacred celebrations according to each of the Rites of both East and West are in harmony with the practice of the universal Church also as regards practices received universally from apostolic and unbroken tradition, which it is the Church’s task to transmit faithfully and carefully to future generations. All these things are wisely safeguarded and protected by the liturgical norms.

• In this case, the effects of abuses are not confined merely to a single congregation, but very possibly to successive generations.

The Mass is about Christ primarily. If priests and laity realised this there would simply be no need to indulge in liturgical abuses to keep the people happy. So, proper catechesis in accordance with the laws of the Church is the way to give a better appreciation of the Holy Mass and hence to put an end to abuses, as well as encouraging the worldwide unity that the Church desires for the faithful.

 

[Pawel_J]

Dear NBC,
I have read all the citations you provided, but I still do not see any abuse in inviting children to the altar. Redemptionis Sacramentum does not say in detail that it is not allowed to do so. It is only your subjective interpretation of this document. There are equally good arguments against or in favor of it. I think we are not in a position to convince each other, so let us remain where we are.

 

[NPC]

Dear NBC,
I have read all the citations you provided, but I still do not see any abuse in inviting children to the altar. Redemptionis Sacramentum does not say in detail that it is not allowed to do so. It is only your subjective interpretation of this document. There are equally good arguments against or in favor of it. I think we are not in a position to convince each other, so let us remain where we are.

Unfortunately we can’t both be right, and quite frankly I’m not comfortable agreeing to disagree when it comes to the spiritual welfare of the faithful… You’re right that R.S. doesn’t specifically mention children being brought to the altar - but obviously it can’t describe every single abuse which could conceivably occur. However, it has already been established on this thread that it is indeed an abuse to allow people to gather around the altar during the Eucharistic Prayer - the issue was formally answered by the Congregation for Divine Worship, as you can see from the link in my original post:

Assuredly, the Eucharistic celebration is the act of the entire community, carried out by all the members of the liturgical assembly. Nevertheless, everyone must have and also must observe his or her own place and proper role: “In liturgical celebrations each one, minister or layperson, who has an office to perform, should do all of, but only, those parts which pertain to that office by the nature of the rite and the principles of liturgy.” (SC art. 29). During the liturgy of the eucharist, only the presiding celebrant remains at the altar. The assembly of the faithful take their place in the Church outside the “presbyterium,” which is reserved for the celebrant or concelebrants and altar ministers.

It really cannot be clearer. In 1997 a document jointlly issued by the Congregations for Clergy, Doctrine of the Faith, Bishops, Divine Worship, Laity & Evangelisation, as well as the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, addressed the matter of the necessary distinction between the roles of clergy and laity. (HERE)

Having established, as these texts do, that it is an abuse to have around the altar (indeed, in the sanctuary) those who are not exercising a specific ministry, Redemptionis Sacramentum is an extremely relevant and pertinent document to refer to with regard to how abuses should be dealt with; it also gives an invaluable insight into the negative effects that abuses can have on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the congregation, and indeed, the wider body of the faithful.