In the ongoing debate about church shopping some of the readers who go to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass defend their choice by saying, \u201cIt is objectively reverent.\u201d Can this be so? It can be objectively formal. It may be objectively done \u2018by the rubrics\u2019 but \u2018reverence\u2019 is surely a subjective experience. They may experience it as \u2018objectively reverent\u2019 but I\u2019ve spoken to other Catholics who have come away from a Mass at one of our local traditionally minded parishes and this is what they\u2019ve said:<\/p>\n
1. That didn\u2019t do anything for me at all. I don\u2019t think it was reverent. All I could think of was how po faced and uptight and mechanical those young servers were. Yucch. They were totally distracting.
2. I didn\u2019t think it was reverent. In fact I didn\u2019t think much about it at all except that I couldn\u2019t understand any of it and wondered why Fr so and so is cold and distant and won\u2019t talk to us in our own language and has his back to us. I was just bored.
3. I find Mass in my parish more reverent. (They\u2019re referring to a parish which traditionalists would look down their nose at for being AmChurch) The lighting is soft and the music is quiet at the consecration and everyone goes forward to receive the Lord reverently.<\/p>\n
I suppose some who favor the traditional forms of worship would say, \u201cIt\u2019s simple. The way we do it is right and they are just wrong. We worship God in His way and they worship him in their way. If they\u2019re Catholic they should learn the old Mass and get used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those who would argue that the priest should just \u201csay the black and do the red\u201d have a good point and I agree with it. A priest should certainly not deviate from the words printed and the rubrics given. However, even when the priest does just this it doesn\u2019t make the Mass reverent necessarily. Terrible music can intrude, poorly drilled servers can distract, bad vestments and awful architecture can distract, or the priest might \u2018say the black and do the red\u2019 with total faithfulness to the rubrics, but say the words either in hip hop\u2013 \u2018look at me aren\u2019t I making the Mass meaningful\u2019 kind of way, or say the black and do the red in a casual and bored way and both would affect the perception of reverence. In other words, many priests \u2018say the black and do the red\u2019 and it\u2019s not reverent at all. All one needs do is talk to an old cradle Catholic who will tell you that his boyhood experience of Mass was centered around the altar boys\u2019 bets\u00a0 that Fr Magillicuddy would set a new land speed record and say Mass in 22 minutes. That good Father \u2018said the black and did the red\u2019 but it sure wasn\u2019t perceived as \u2018reverent.\u2019<\/p>\n
Furthermore, simply \u2018saying the black and doing the red\u2019 doesn\u2019t necessarily bring in any kind of simple uniformity of worship. In my own parish I aim to \u2018say the black and do the red.\u2019 The music will be simple, classic hymns. The servers (mostly boys) will be trained to serve with dignity and simplicity. I don\u2019t want to do anything special. I don\u2019t want the worship to be overly formal or overly dignified or for the music to be overly magnificent. Nothing will distract. All things in the liturgy should focus on the action at the altar and nothing else. However, despite my attempts to be as objective as possible in my celebration of the Mass I am sure before long my own parish will carry the stamp of its pastor just like all the other parishes in town and people will come to my parish or leave my parish according to how much they like \u2018Fr Dwight\u2019s Mass\u2019. This is a frustration for me because I would dearly love to provide something that is \u2018objectively reverent\u2019 but I doubt if it is possible. <\/p>\n
What is \u2018reverence\u2019 at Mass anyway? Some traditionalists think it can be packaged and performed and if it is all done \u2018just so\u2019 then it will be reverent. What they experience as reverence will leave many other Catholics cold. They make the mistake of assuming that because they find formality, beautiful music and splendid liturgy reverent that everyone else must as well, they then go on to insist that \u201cIf only those other Catholics could experience this fine liturgy they will love it and come back to the tradition and all shall be well. Sadly, the majority of ordinary Catholics are simply turned off by\u00a0 traditional worship. They don\u2019t appreciate the formality. They don\u2019t like what comes across as exclusive, high falutin\u2019 arty masses filled with snooty people who look down on them. They don\u2019t think it\u2019s wonderful, and so they vote with their feet and go to AmChurch parishes.<\/p>\n
Now I know what will happen, all those who like traditional liturgy will think I am accusing them of being snooty and arty and high falutin\u2019 and stuck up.\u00a0 Some of them will write snooty comments and prove my point. However I\u2019m not\u2013repeat\u2013not throwing stones at traditionalist Catholics. I\u2019m actually on their side. I\u2019m simply stating how many of them are perceived by an awful lot of rather nice, ordinary Catholic folk who have tried traditional Catholic worship and simply don\u2019t like it. <\/p>\n
So where is \u2018reverence\u2019 in worship to be found? All I can do is speak for myself: I have experienced true reverence at a Solemn Missa Cantata in Latin. I have also experienced reverence at a camp with 200 children and college aged students where a couple of kids with guitars had prepared contemporary music carefully and helped lead the worship with true love and devotion. I\u2019ve experienced true reverence at a fishing village Mass on a hot summer night in El Salvador with illiterate people singing with just an accordion, a fiddle and a broken down drum set. I\u2019ve experienced true reverence in worship at the Taize Community and at Kings\u2019 College Cambridge. I\u2019ve experienced it in the stillness after all the loud music has died down and communion is completed at a huge charismatic Catholic rally. I\u2019ve experienced reverence at Mass at the tomb of St Peter, in the chapel once used by St Maximillian Kolbe, in an inner city Mass in England in a church crowded with the unemployed and homeless, and I\u2019ve experienced reverence at a country church in England at 7am on a winter morning when my breath froze. I\u2019ve experienced reverence after Mass at Mont St Michel or a hundred other monasteries, and at a big circus tent church in an American suburb, and at a 6pm weekday Mass at Westminster Cathedral\u2013the great dark hall crammed with office workers and tramps and students and children who have stayed late at school.<\/p>\n
Can someone come along and say I did not experience reverence in these places because the Masses did not follow the rubrics of the Catholic Mass?<\/p>\n
I think not.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the ongoing debate about church shopping some of the readers who go to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass defend their choice by saying, \u201cIt is objectively reverent.\u201d Can this be so? It can be objectively formal. It may be objectively done \u2018by the rubrics\u2019 but \u2018reverence\u2019 is surely a subjective experience. They may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n