Below is a portion of a Praytell post by a priestess of the Anglican Communion. You can read the full article HERE. As I read the article, especially the portion I post below, it was as though I was back in the seminary of the 1970’s and liturgy courses there attended by female students from our seminary’s ecumenical institute. Many were studying for Anglican ministry.
I see three major problems with this theology.
Firstly, it is ecumenical and reduces, truncates and perverts the authentic Catholic understanding of the Mass as an act of God’s intervention into the Church, no matter how many or how few of the community are there. It is the lowest common denominator of the ecumenical movement upon Catholicism.
Secondly, it is purely horizontal. There appears to be no faith element in the Divine Act or intervention, what is referred to as the vertical. An atheist or agnostic could well feel at home with the horizontal vision of community and personal growth and nourishment. It is a horizontalism that leads to a strong sense of belonging to a human community here and now regardless of what is to come. It is for and about those who gather.
Thirdly and this flows directly from the second, is that this is communal narcissism. It’s all about us and this time and this place. It truly is a perversion of Catholic worship and liturgy, to say the least, and please notice, which is to be expected in an ecumenical approach to worship, there is no hint or talk of the sacrificial act of Christ on our behalf for our eternal salvation.
Here is the excerpt:
The celebration of Holy Communion, the Holy Eucharist, is an incarnational worship experience. The distinct features that nourish the soul and grow our faith lie in joining our voices in song and prayer, in our corporate confession and the words of absolution, in the sharing of insights from Scripture, each person hearing what s/he needs at that time, and the partaking in God’s holy meal of Christ’s body and blood. Or in the words of Paul to the church in Corinth: What should be done then, my friends? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.(1 Cor. 14:26)
In other words worship, liturgy, is a corporate act, authenticated by the active engagement of the congregation, identified as the full, conscious and active participation of God’s holy people. The Greek word leitourgia originally means the public work of the people. If we lose sight of this, we risk cultivating a passive audience watching a spectator sport (with all due respect for the sincere efforts of clergy to sustain the spirit of the faithful as best they can). Recall Jesus’ words: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”(Matt. 18:20) God is present with us as we are present to one another in prayer and conversation, in joint confession and forgiveness, in song and praise, in sharing Christ’s Body and Blood.
To the Praytell clientele, the whole notion of on-line Mass presented live makes no sense and is not efficacious. Why, because from the Protestant perspective, which the ecumenical movement’s spirit must take its point of departure, you have to have a community of people, fulfilling various roles and feeling a sense of connectiveness to each other. It fits the narcissism meme I highlight in my third point. How could a private Mass with a priest alone or with one male server be communal, warm, welcoming, inclusive, nourishing, sustaining and growth producing?
And that’s precisely the problem with what has happened to the Catholic Mass and how many authentic priests in the Sacrament of Holy Orders express their priesthood in a truncated, narcissistic way in the manner in which most Ordinary Form Masses are celebrated today and their priesthood expressed. It’s ethos is ecumenical and thus Protestant. Protestants feel at home in the horizontal experience of fellowship and “love.”
I am not saying that on-line Masses should be the norm in normal times, but it certainly should be the norm in abnormal times, in times of quarantine, for those homebound and those who for whatever reason cannot attend Mass in person with others.
When I celebrate Mass alone or with one server, it is the Holy Sacrifice of Jesus Christ at Calvary that is re-presented in a gloriously risen way, an unbloody, beautiful way, for the salvation of the world. IT IS AN ACT OF GOD AND OUR RESPONSE TO HIM ALONE IN PRAYER, PRAISE, SACRIFICE AND WORSHIP: INDIVIDUALLY, VERTICALLY, IN A THANKFUL WAY ALBEIT IN A COMMUNAL PAROCHIAL SETTING. AND TO THE WORLD WHOSE LIFE IS ENDING (THAT’S MOTHER EARTH AND ALL OF US EVENTUALLY) WE LOOK VERTICALLY TO THE ORIENT, THE EAST, TOWARD THE RISING SUN, TO OUR ETERNAL DWELLING IN HEAVEN WITH THE MOST HOLY TRINITY, OUR BLESSED MOTHER, THE ANGELS AND SAINTS.
25 comments:
As Ann calls it diabolical narcissism
https://image-media.gloria.tv/placidus/a/e60z3kez5v8wy78pec9ovk632f3aangqq9dlfhi.jpg
One other point, when the Mass or any worship becomes so communitarian and horizontal, a live-streamed Mass, watched live by the faithful who are present "in spirit" only, is considered anathema because it does not evoke an emotional response of any kind. With only the priest celebrant physically present celebrating a Mass, completely spoken (and in the case of the EF Mass, most of it silent, the Roman Canon in particular and with no homily, how are Catholics to feel about it emotionally for it is dry and sterile? This sort of Mass would more than likely not create an "emotional" response in those watching, like listening to hyper praise and worship music or secular music with the same ethos or even Gregorian Chant and Polyphony. The Mass is stripped to its basic core--the worship of God and His bringing forth in an incarnational and gloriously risen way,through the Sacrament of the Priesthood, the re-presentation of the One Sacrifice of His Son on Calvary's Hill. That one Sacrifice then and now in an eternal gloriously risen way, is what saves the world when we receive the Gift of eternal salvation worthily with a pure soul and heart, forgiven through our repentance and God's grace given us in that One Sacrifice.
Bee here:
In the Extraordinary Form for today's Mass, the Epistle is from Hebrews and says in part:
"For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"
That reading makes it pretty clear what we believe and what has been emphasized in the Mass in ages past. But not even a hint of this theology is seen in the readings for the Ordinary Form of today's Mass.
Those in the Catholic Church who made compromises with the Protestants under the guise of "ecumenism" sacrificed the truth for the sake of human respect.
And now the Protestants have the cheek to tell us we are doing it "wrong."
Gotta love it.
God bless.
Bee
We have “attended” Holy Mass every morning at 8 am online with a wonderful, reverent local priest. We begin by lighting a formerly-blessed candle and bless ourselves and our home “altar” with holy water. I bring up the readings from the USCCB website. We do NOT sit passively—we assist by standing, sitting, kneeling and making ALL appropriate responses and prayers. It is very active, and we have had a very positive emotional experience celebrating with our local priest. I thank God and this holy local Priest for making this possible! I know you are doing the same, FRAJM, despite the absence of parishioners in pews. May God bless all you are doing to build us and guide us toward heaven.
In your homily you stated: "We have no control over whether or not we will get the virus."
This is an incorrect statement and, potentially, a dangerous one. It goes against everything we are told by medical professionals and researchers and practitioners.
We have considerable control when we exercise social distancing and when we are careful to wash or disinfect our hands when we have to go out.
This is, by no means, a hopeless situation in terms of maintaining personal health. Telling people they cannot control, to great extent, their exposure to the virus is foolish.
When following a live-streamed Low Mass I do exactly what I would do if I were present; with the aid of a daily missal I pay close attention to the Propers, in particular the Epistle and Gospel; I pray quietly the server's responses which I learned by heart more than sixty years ago, as well as the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei; I hear with an inner ear the priest as he prays silently familiar prayers (no options, the like of which bedevil the Novus Ordo). And no surprises either; the priest's words and actions are prescribed by the rubrics - he is not a 'presider' who thinks he's a chat-show host. That concept was being floated before Vatican II but thanks to Paul VI was firmly grounded by 1964.
This shift in emphasis was spotted early on by Evelyn Waugh who had always been attracted to the functional simplicity of the Low Mass. At that time the English bishops seemed to be under the impression that nothing much would change. They soon found themselves overtaken by events.
Incidentally, the Oratorians at Oxford are live streaming the traditional Mass daily. Although the Fathers are bi-ritual, in the normal course of events an EF Mass is not scheduled on every weekday (the London Oratory is probably unique in offering an EF Mass and an OF Latin Mass every day of the week). When all this is over, we could well see an increase in the number of scheduled EF Masses.
I do not know where this erroneous idea of liturgy as the work of the people came from, but it has invaded the Catholic Church. Here is the traditional definition of "liturgy" as taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia with a Nihil Obstat of 1910:
<< Liturgy (leitourgia) is a Greek composite word meaning originally a public duty, a service to the state undertaken by a citizen. Its elements are leitos (from leos = laos, people) meaning public, and ergo (obsolete in the present stem, used in future erxo, etc.), to do. From this we have leitourgos, "a man who performs a public duty", "a public servant", often used as equivalent to the Roman lictor; then leitourgeo, "to do such a duty", leitourgema, its performance, and leitourgia, the public duty itself.
At Athens the leitourgia was the public service performed by the wealthier citizens at their own expense, such as the office of gymnasiarch, who superintended the gymnasium, that of choregus, who paid the singers of a chorus in the theatre, that of the hestiator, who gave a banquet to his tribe, of the trierarchus, who provided a warship for the state. The meaning of the word liturgy is then extended to cover any general service of a public kind. In the Septuagint it (and the verb leitourgeo) is used for the public service of the temple (e.g., Exodus 38:27; 39:12, etc.). Thence it comes to have a religious sense as the function of the priests, the ritual service of the temple (e.g., Joel 1:9, 2:17, etc.). In the New Testament this religious meaning has become definitely established. In Luke 1:23, Zachary goes home when "the days of his liturgy" (ai hemerai tes leitourgias autou) are over. In Hebrews 8:6, the high priest of the New Law "has obtained a better liturgy", that is a better kind of public religious service than that of the Temple.
So in Christian use liturgy meant the public official service of the Church, that corresponded to the official service of the Temple in the Old Law. >>
The ideas in this last sentence were condemned and heavily mocked by the liturgical movement. In fact, the whole point of the liturgical movement was communal worship with everyone participating as priests. I suppose that is what one expects when the actors in the liturgical movement were monks or priests living in community, not unlike Luther trying to get his experience as a monk to pervade the Christian society of Germany at the time. No longer is the communion of saints an element in the Mass so that the celebrant is never alone even if no other earthly humans are present, but the Mass is a purely earthly human event needing, as you rightly say, a human community. Worse still is that it leads to the idea of the community being more important than the individual in public worship, as if it were the community that gets saved, not the individual, which is heresy. With the stress on earthly human community, as you rightly point out, the Novus Ordo event becomes a narcissistic event, and I would say, in the order of human group therapy.
A@11:08, only a fool thinks he has control over anything,including his salvation.
Bee here:
Oh, the hilarity of watching a certain "Anonymous" now argue the dangers of NOT taking precautions against the spread of germs!
Comedy gold!
God bless.
Bee
Victor
Quite simply the best post I have read on a Catholic site in years. Thank you.
Indeed, Father, perhaps it’s time we all studied and began using the Twelve Steps in our Christian Catholic lives. A very good Benedictine priest from California, Fr. Emmerich Vogt, gives retreats all over the country and preaches that message. He says it is essential to living as a serious Christian and know the power of Grace in our lives. I haven’t looked at his materials in years, but now might be a good time to review them! Paraphrased, first step is to acknowledge that I am not in control...second step is to acknowledge that God is.
Of course, absolutely we must all pay attention to and “exercise social distancing and...to wash or disinfect our hands when we have to go out.” No question. But to think we have any real control over this virus is both dangerous and, yes, foolish because we all have to risk exposure by the simple act of entering grocery store that can contaminate clothing, shoes, skin & hair, and respiratory passages. And sadly, human nature being what it is, we cannot control what OTHERS are or are not doing.
Thus, we do our best physically, then put our Faith, Hope and Trust in God Who controls all.
Not many folk seem to think of the half of population with no unlimited high speed internet, nor desk or laptop computer, nor big screen TV with unlimited cable, nor home office suite, and who are lucky to have a cell phone with a data plan which simply will not sustain live videos (or much of any video at all)...much less 1/2hr-1hr Masses.
They think everyone is just like them....while millions of Catholics in the USA in reality are sitting at home, eating out of a diminishing supply of cans, and cut off from anything but maybe hearsay or perhaps a cellphone and able to click on a few news sites to see what is happening.
Those streaming Masses do nothing for them at all.
So Bob, perhaps I’m misinterpreting your point, but I’m confused. Are you saying specifically that none of us should watch streaming liturgies because not everyone has access to such? If so, that would be like saying none of us should eat turkey at Thanksgiving because many don’t have access to a turkey.
Or, are you making a generalized point that we are obligated to help the poor as much as we can? If so, most of us try our best to do such. Right now everyone I know is trying to help total strangers with food and supplies. (Case in point: See the local Facebook page “CSRA Coronavirus Support Group” started by one man who wanted to help and now has well over 10,000 followers in our greater geographic area.).
God bless you for caring.
"Oh, the hilarity of watching a certain "Anonymous" now argue the dangers of NOT taking precautions against the spread of germs!"
Nope, Never happened.
You've got to twist it that way to show your support for Fr. McDonald.
I get that.
But when he passes off dangerous and simply incorrect information, you ought to reconsider.
Bee here:
Anonymous at March 29, 2020 at 4:55pm said, "You've got to twist it that way to show your support for Fr. McDonald."
Yeah. That's what it is...
God bless.
Bee
Bee,
Fake Catholic priests can’t handle strong, faithful women like you! They only can support women who murder the murder innocent unborn
Victor (my late father’s name),
I concur with John Nolan
I normally ignore anonymous posts, but since you asked...it is elitisim in utterly ignoring the fact that many millions and millions only in the USA are utterly deserted of any SPIRITUAL nourishment by those claiming to be shepherds/pastors, where at least one bishop has banned annointing of the sick, even.
Running food is a worthy good work but only secondary to caring for souls, saving souls the job of the Church, as a true Christian knows we will never build heaven on earth, and such a Christian also knows this world is not our home and we are going to all die, even in an age of peace/love/dove/and Bel Air Mall.
This is deadly cold plague, and not something with 90% mortality such as ebola, and yet how many good priests still willingly took chances and paid with their lives to administer sacraments in ebola outbreaks?
The one thing a priest can do which no lay person can do is administer the critical, salvific Sacraments....any lay person will do, otherwise, and if priests/pastors/bishops/popes are not doing that, then they are only very expensive, high maintenance, bookends gather dust on a forgotten shelf, and saving only themselves, and for what? Parish admin? Lay people can do THAT just as fine or terrible as any priest/bishop/pope....
Telling every Catholic in the USA to just watch streaming Masses is as tone-deaf as saying to just catch a flight to Rome for next Easter...it is outside the reality of most Catholics in the world, and exists only for the wealthy minority with which most churchmen spend most time.
Bob, you are correct that running food and goods to our neighbors is secondary to saving their souls. But it is the method of evangelizing we must follow.
As if running goods to neighbors does not risk infecting them?
Life in never risk free, and we ALL die, period. To deny sacraments while people are dying, to protect what? WHAT?
Folk expect truckers and food processors and pharmacies and health care workers, city and state utility workers, grocery store workers etc etc etc to go to work daily, and yet priests and bishops deny sacraments while flocks are dying? And folk see that as being a good citizen as their primary duty?
Sacraments can be safely performed with more effort put forth....but it is just too much trouble and is looked at purely as an exercise in liability law overreaction of since not 100% risk free, then NOBODY does it...to protect, not the population, but the manmade institution.
Our priests are sitting in the confessional for 4 hours a day, 4 days a week and distributing Holy Communion every 15 minutes to people who come during those hours. Having mass would be preferred, of course, but it seems that our priests have determined that the local edict not to have such gatherings is a just one that must be followed.
We have a number of elderly people at our chapel, and we have many families who don't have televisions. While steaming mass is available from the Phoenix chapel everyday, we have that as an option. We also have the more standard method of sanctifying the Sunday in the absence of mass: Read the Missal as a family and say the Rosary.
As traditional Catholics, being without the mass is something that is at least a little familiar since we have previously found ourselves in locations where there was no mass available. So these methods have received some practice over the years.
Anyway, I agree with Bob that telling people to stream the mass isn't the answer. People should be taught how to sanctify the Sunday in the absence of mass. Thankfully, our priests did that before on the Sundays our masses were taken away. I feel badly for those people whose priests have essentially abandoned them, particularly during the already spiritually arduous Passiontide in which we currently find ourselves.
One can understand "liturgy" to mean a work that an official does for the people.
Or it can mean something that is done "with" the people, or "involving" the people."
1550s, Liturgy, "the service of the Holy Eucharist," from Middle French liturgie (16c.) or directly from Late Latin/Medieval Latin liturgia "public service, public worship," from Greek leitourgia "a liturgy; public duty, ministration, ministry," from leitourgos "one who performs a public ceremony or service, public servant," from leito- "public" (from laos "people;" compare leiton "public hall," leite "priestess;" see lay (adj.)) + -ergos "that works," from ergon "work" (from PIE root *werg- "to do"). Meaning "collective formulas for the conduct of divine service in Christian churches" is from 1590s. Related: Liturgist; liturgics.
The shift in eccelsiology that has come in relatively recent years was noted by then Cardinal Ratzinger in his paper "The Ecclesiology of Vatican Two." In opening paragraphs he wrote: "If until that time we had thought of the Church primarily as a structure or organization, now at last we began to realize that we ourselves were the Church."
What we do at liturgy is not something we observe being done for us. It is something we do together - the work that is given to the entire Church, to every baptized member, to every ordained member of the clergy, to every household and individual.
Anonymous K,
The new ecclesiology just like Vatican Disaster II is a massive flop unless you think doing something together with tens of millions less Catholics is your measure of success
I also am rather, uhh, flummoxed by the several comments equating running food to people as any manner of reply to lack of Sacraments which Holy Church has always held as a requirement for salvation or aid to salvation....or equating it with personal evangelization, as if evangelization is what is quashed rather than the sacramental life of the Church...
evangelization of what news? There is no "evangelist" worth listening to who cannot tell someone how to truly experience God and know God is really true, and how to live in love with this God.
Anything less than that, and limited to only nice works, is only "click bait" of, "See? We are nice people, and you should visit our church sometime," marketing ploy....
which has flopped when church attendance measured, as once those new arrivals show, after a little while, it does not take a genius to see the folk at this wonderful feel-good church do not have any answers when ultimate questions such as "I am dying. Help me experience God!" come up. Those seekers are not looking for groceries...neither are those dying in hospitals.
If all a church can offer is groceries, most folk go to a specialist such as grocery store who does a far better job of it, and the truth of this easy to see by counting Sunday church attendance vs Sunday grocery store attendance. Folk can see who really gives them what they seek. A marketplace for food pretty much always delivers, while churches who claim to have the peace of knowing God and God truly present in their midst mostly have everything but...
And now its own ministers told to "shelter in place" by bosses and innovative ministers shut down right and left who have come up with all manner of ingenious ways of administering sacraments while maintaining medically advised precautionary practices and even following civil law mandates....and denying even extreme unction...abandoned utterly by their "shepherds" more aptly named "shelter-in-place-herds".
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