Actually, Consumed, we do have a right to the Mass and all the sacraments. Canon Law says as much. So did John Paul II in his document from 1980: “The faithful have a right to a true Liturgy . . .”
And there has always been a right to the Traditional Mass, which has never been banned. Pope Benedict explicitly stated this in his motu proprio.
And you’re right-- the Catholic Church is a place–the place!-- to worship Christ, which is precisely why the New Mass is unacceptable . . . it places emphasis on man rather than God.
I would think that someone who focuses so much on what other people are doing at a Mass to the point of judging if they are irreverent or not is the one who is focusing more on man rather than God during the Mass.
Blessings,
Marduk
Fortunately for the rest of us, and unfortunately for you, the Pope disagrees.
Well, let’s see what someone who speaks for the Pope says about this one …
**“Why Ratzinger is recouping the sacred”
Marco Politi
The signal was unmistakable. First Coprus Christi in Rome, then seen live all over the word from Sydney. Benedict XVI is demanding that, before him, Communion be received on one’s knees. It is one of many reclamations of this pontificate: Latin, the “Tridentine” Mass, celebration with the back to the faithful.
Pope Ratzinger has a plan and the and the Sri Lankan [Archbishop] Malcolm Ranjith, whom the Pontiff wanted with him in the Vatican as Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, lays out with efficacy.
Attention to liturgy, he explains, has the objective of an “openness to the transcendent”. At the request of the Pope, Ranjith states in advance, the Congregation for divine Worship is preparing a Compendium on the Eucharist to help priests to “prepare themselves well for Eucharistic celebration and adoration”.
Does Communion kneeling aim in this direction?
“In the liturgy one feels the necessity to recover the sense of the sacred, above all in Eucharistic celebration. Since we believe that what happens at the altar goes far beyond what we can humanly imagine. And so the faith of the Church in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharistic species is expressed through adequate gestures and comportments different from those of daily life”.
Indicating a discontinuity?
"We are not in front of a political figure or a personage of modern society, but before God. When the presence of eternal God descends on the altar, we must place ourselves in a posture more apt for adoring It. In my culture, in Sri Lanka, we ought to prostrate ourselves with head to the pavement as the buddhists and muslims do in prayer.
Does putting the Host in the hand diminish the sense of transcendence of the Eucharist?
“Yes, in a certain sense. It risks that the communicant feel It to be as normal bread. The Holy Father speaks often of the necessity of safeguarding the sense of “otherness” in the liturgy in its every expression. The gesture of taking the Sacred Host and putting it ourselves in the mouth and not receiving It reduces the profound meaning of Communion.”
Is there a desire to oppose trends that banalize the Mass?
“In some places that sense of the eternal, sacred or heavenly has been lost. There was a tendency to put man at the center of the celebration, and not the Lord. But the Second Vatican Council speaks clearly about the liturgy as actio Dei, actio Christi. Instead, in certain liturgical circles, either for an ideology or a certain intellectualism as you please, the idea spread of a liturgy adaptable to various situations, in which one had to leave room for creativity, so that it be accessible and acceptable to all. Then, rather, there were those who introduced innovations without even respecting the sensus fidei and the spiritual sentiments of the faithful.”
At times even bishops grap the microphone and go out to their listeners with questions and answers.
“The modern danger is that the priest things that he is at the center of the action. In that way the rite can take on an aspect of theatre or the performance of a television host. The celebrant sees the people who see him as the point of reference and there is a risk that, to have the greatest success possible with the public, he makes up gestures and expressions as if he were the main character.”
What would be the right attitude?
“When the priest knows that it is not he at the center, bu Christ. In humble service to the Lord and the Church respecting the liturgy and its rules, as something to be received and not to be invented, it means leaving greater room for the Lord, because through the priest as the instrument He can spark the awareness of the faithful.”
Are sermons by lay people also deviations?
"Yes. Because the sermon, as the Holy Father says, is the way in which Revelation and the great Tradition of the Church is explained, so that the Word of God can inspire the life of the faithful in their daily choices and render the liturgical celebration rich with spiritual fruits. The liturgical tradition of the Church reserves the sermon to the celebrant. To bishops, to priests, and to deacons. But not to laypeople.
Absolutely not?
“Not because they are not capable of doing making a reflection, but because in the liturgy roles must be respected. There exists, as the Council said, a difference ‘in essence and not only in grade” between the common priesthood of all the baptized and that of priests".
Some time ago Card. Ratzinger was complaining about the loss in the rites of the sense of mystery.
"Often the conciliar reform was interpreted or considered in a way not entirely in conformity with the mind of Vatican II. The Holy Father defines this tendency as the ‘anti-spirit’ of the Council.
A year now since the full reintroduction of the Tridentine Mass, what is the assessment?
"The Tridentine Mass has its very profound internal values which reflect the whole tradition of the Church. There is more respect toward the sacred through gestures, genuflections, the times of silence. There is greater room reserved for reflection on the action of the Lord and also for the celebrant’s personal sense of devotion, who offers the sacrifice not only for the faithful but also for his own sins and his own salvation. Some important elements of the old rite can help also a reflection on the manner of celebrating the Novus Ordo. We are in the midst of a journey.
Some day in the future is there foreseen a rite that takes the best of the old and of the new?
“That could be, … but perhaps I don’t see that. I think that in the coming decades we will move toward a comprehensive evaluation both of the older rite and of the new, safeguarding whatever is eternal and supernatural happening at the altar and reducing every desire to be the in the limelight so as to leave space for effective contact between the faithful and the Lord through the figure, but not predominantly, of the priest.”
With alternative positions of the celebrant? When the priest would be turned around toward the apse?
"You could consider the offertory, when the offerings are brought to the priest, and from there all the way to the Eucharistic prayer, which represents the culminating moment of “transsubstantiatio” and “communio”.**
(continued…)
to that, pnewton.