Cardinal's Column 5/9/04

Liturgy and Unity

The Archdiocesan Pastoral Council numbers about sixty Catholics of the Archdiocese, mostly laity elected by deanery, who advise me about policy and about the pastoral situation in Cook and Lake Counties. Each year the agenda is set from questions I put to them or topics they want me to hear about. Its purpose is to review various aspects of the Church’s mission and to work with me to achieve unity of purpose in ministry.

One of the topics we’ve been reviewing this year is liturgy and the reception of the changes in our manner of celebrating Mass because of the new General Introduction to the Roman Missal. This new instruction was explained in the parish bulletins and, in most parishes, from the pulpit before going into effect last Advent. The members of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council made many important observations in discussing the state of the liturgy in the Archdiocese, and I’ll mention here just a few of the points they covered.

One change the APC members appreciated was the addition of moments of silence before the beginning of the Mass and after the readings, as well as after communion. With more silence, the experience of worship is more recollected, the rhythm and tempo of the celebration more conducive to deeper prayer. This seemingly small change has made a great improvement in Eucharistic liturgy.

More mixed were their comments on music and homilies. I pressed the members to speak about homilies, since I’ve heard from some how terrible they are; yet I had seldom heard a complaint about a specific homily. The general consensus that I picked up from the APC was that most homilies are adequate. The priest or deacon works at it and there is usually something that the laity can take to help them be better disciples. References to experience are helpful, but not necessarily references to the priest’s experience. It is better if he can bring in the experience of the laity. While most homilies seem to be worthwhile, several members of the APC said they could remember only two or three really great homilies in all their years of attending Mass.

The importance of music was clear in their comments; music helps or hinders the participation and devotion necessary for worship. The Archdiocesan Pastoral Council didn’t discuss differences in musical style and what is helpful and what not. The Holy See has always said that music in Church is to be judged helpful to worship to the extent that it brings the faithful to understand and assimilate the liturgical texts, with Gregorian Chant being the paramount example of how words and music should relate in liturgy. Much effort has gone into liturgical music in the Archdiocese over the years, and rightly so.

One area of the instruction has not been adequately understood and has generated resentment in some quarters: the changes in the manner of giving and receiving Holy Communion. The bow as an external mark of reverence before receiving the Lord is a new habit which will take some time for everyone to get used to; but, of far greater significance in places where ministers received Holy Communion only after serving everyone else, a custom never permitted officially, the recognition that one may serve others in the Lord’s name only after having personally received him needs to be reflected upon. For some, distinctions between the ordained priest and the laity are never to be emphasized. Unfortunately, this sociological egalitarianism destroys the sense of the Church as a body, with head and members connected but essentially different in their mode of participation in Christ’s priesthood. It strikes me that these relationships are well expressed in the people’s response to the priest’s invitation to pray at the end of the preparation of the gifts: “May the Lord receive the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his Church.” In that prayer, the Lord, the priest celebrant and the baptized faithful come together in differentiated unity.

Parishes are adjusting to these changes because we celebrate the Eucharist according to the Roman rite of the Church. The Congregation for Divine Worship in Rome recently published a document intended as a complement to the Holy Father’s encyclical on the Holy Eucharist last year. In that papal letter, “The Church from the Eucharist,” Pope John Paul II spoke of the amazement any believer feels before the great gift of Christ’s real presence under the forms of bread and wine, an amazement which leads to the full participation in the Eucharistic action of the Mass and to adoration of the reserved sacrament.

The liturgy “recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church,” the Pope writes. Contemplating the whole mystery of the Eucharist opens our hearts and minds to understand it as “sacrifice in the strict sense,” as “presence in the fullest sense,” as “true banquet,” as “a seed of living hope in our daily commitment to the work before us, “ and equally as “the anticipation of heaven.” Because the Eucharist is the source and summit of our ecclesial life, the Church is attentive to the manner of its celebration. “The Sacrament of Redemption,” which is the name of the most recent instruction from the Congregation for Divine Worship, presupposes what the Pope has previously written on the nature of the Eucharist and points out some abuses in practice. It is a document addressed to the entire world. It does not contain new legislation but gives guidance on liturgical laws already in effect. Reading it is like making an examination of conscience on Eucharistic practice, and I am sure our local Office for Divine Liturgy will see that its contents are understood in the parishes.

While its prescriptions already govern our Eucharistic practice, for the most part, there is one or the other point that will again require adjustment. One that struck me in my first reading concerns the use of flagons, which contain the wine brought to the altar to be consecrated. The Instruction explains that the wine is to be poured immediately into the chalices from which the Precious Blood will be distributed to the people, rather than consecrating the wine in the flagon and then pouring the Blood of Christ into chalices just before distribution. A simple note such as this can make us stop and wonder if our present practice might not have tended to treat the presence of the Risen Lord under the form of wine as a commodity; the prescription, like so many others, is designed to make our ritual practice feed our amazement in faith before so great a mystery.

Any prescription for change can also feed resentment if we do not recognize that the Eucharist is not our invention but a gift from Christ to the universal Church and is to be celebrated according to the norms of the universal Church. The Eucharist is a cause and a sign of our unity; its oversight by the bishop demonstrates the role of the hierarchy as both a cause and a sign of our unity. At the end of the first century, St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote, “That Eucharist which is celebrated under the bishop or under the one to whom the bishop has given this charge may be considered certain.” Where there are aberrations in Eucharistic practice, there are most probably more general difficulties in ecclesiastical discipline and, eventually, there will be problems in professing the apostolic faith. What all these instructions are about, then, is not glass flagons and reverential bows and appropriate music and other details. What the instructions are about is our communal worship of the Father, as our unity in Christ permits us to worship him, from within Christ’s body, the Church. I remember you always at Mass; please pray for me as well.