On the whole, my feeling is that one should never get het up over a minor change in the words the first time you hear it. Or even the second time. Once or twice can be an accident. If you hear it three times, go to the priest and ask. Then you will know where you are.
The glass paten seems to me to be a different matter. OK, maybe the sacristan put it out by mistake. But that leaves us with two troubling questions:
- Why is the sacristan not trained in the most basic of his/her duties?
- Why on earth does a Catholic parish even have a glass paten to put out??
Also I felt I wanted to respond to the questions below because everyone else who responded seems to have had a really remarkable amount of good fortune.
How many of us have heard the texts of the Mass manhandled repeatedly and deliberately by any number of priests?
Yep.
How many of us have heard the words of consecration changed?
Yep. Some of my most urgent research shortly after I came back to the Church was spurred by my need to figure out whether I needed to go to Mass again, because I wasn’t sure the one I had attended was valid. (It was. The requirements for a valid Mass are very simple.)
How many of us have seen all manner of deliberate silliness introduced under the claim that “we need to just be glad that we are at Mass?”
Well, not exactly. More under the claim that “we need to be relevant.” Ick.
How many of us have seen liturgical dance?
Yep. And if the dancers weren’t embarrassed, that’s OK, because I was embarrassed enough for them.
How many of us have seen a milk and honey service…that’s really special!
Nope, no idea what this is.
Now, is it possible the priest was simply tired and made a mistake? Yes, but highly unlikely in that NO SUCH phrase is now, or has ever been, licitly approved.
I’m not with you on this, though. People can make new mistakes. People’s minds can wander a little, random associations can happen. Give people the benefit of the doubt.
I have definitely experienced faithful and conscientious priests. I am very grateful that all the priests in my current parish fall into this category (as far as it’s any of my business).
I have also experienced feminist priests, who do things like remain obviously and obstinately silent, week after week, when we get to the words “men and” in the Creed. And theatrical priests, who do things like start up a clappy sing-song during the homily (possibly not forbidden, but “yuck”). And sloppy or ignorant priests, who teach both inaccurate facts and theologically incorrect principles in their homilies. (I mean, if it’s annoying enough to hear in secular places that the Church persecuted Galileo for proving that the helio-centric theory was correct, how much more annoying is it to hear it in a homily? Or worse, “probably there is nobody in Hell?”) I have experienced a liturgical director (not a priest) who said, “Nobody expects anyone to follow all of that stuff. It’s mostly just guidelines.” (“That stuff” in this case was referring to the rubrics.)
Mass becomes much less joyful in those situations.
And this is all since I returned to the Church. Before I left, I really wasn’t paying enough attention to notice any of that.
Intentional liturgical abuse is a problem. Even if the change is pretty small, if it’s intentional it indicates an attitude toward the Mass that should be discouraged right away.
Here is an analogy: There is a world of difference between someone who believes all the Church teaches (as far as they know and understand it) and a person who takes even one dogma of the Church and denies it–even privately. The difference is between someone who thinks the Church is what she says she is, and someone who doesn’t. If I decide that, e.g., the Virgin Mary had other children after Jesus, it means that I have decided that I am better than the Church–that I know more, or have a better understanding, or whatever. But more importantly than that, it means I don’t think the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit. Most importantly of all, it means that I offer obedience to the Church only conditionally–which is the same as not being obedient at all. If we are only obedient when we also have decided the same way as the Church on an issue, we’re not being obedient when we follow the Church’s teachings–we’re just being lucky that the Church happens to teach what we have decided to believe anyway.
In the same way, a priest who decides to change the rubrics has a completely different attitude to the Mass than one who doesn’t (even if that one sometimes makes mistakes!). Even one intentional change makes the Mass more about the priest, and less about God. I think many priests who commit intentional liturgical abuse don’t realize what they’re doing. It is the job of seminaries and bishops to make sure they do start to realize what they’re doing–but it’s hard to keep track of, and it’s possible, of course, that even some bishops are unaware of the implications of liturgical abuse.
All of which is to say that intentional liturgical abuse needs to be stopped. It is not to say that any priest who has committed liturgical abuses should be blamed by anyone in the congregation–how do we know what is in the priest’s soul? The important thing for us lay people is that the situation is corrected. The whole question of blame is only relevant to the priest’s confessor.
–Jen
