As I approach my 64th birthday at the end of this year (and thus in 2018 will be in my 65th year), I do not have the energy in my new parish to promote something that under Pope Benedict I thought would become the norm again, but realize under Pope Francis, there is no intention of continuing to push that agenda.
In my new parish, there is no groundswell either for Latin or the Extraordinary Form. Perhaps the reason for that is the Cathedral EF weekly Mass in downtown Savannah which I am fortunate to celebrate once a month.
So in my new parish, I simply have the modified "Benedictine Altar Arrangement" for facing the congregation similar to the arrangement in my previous parish.
In my previous parish after about 10 years there, I begin to celebrate one of our 5 weekend Mass, the 12:10 PM Mass ad orientem simply for the Liturgy of the Eucharist. In all other ways it was like the Ordinary Form Masses celebrated at other times facing the people (we did restore kneeling at the altar railing for the 12:10 PM Mass once our altar railing was restored.
Then I took the bold step of celebrating our once a month additional 2 pm EF Mass and moving it to the ad orientem 12:10 PM OF Mass, once a month. No one complained to me about these two major liturgical changes nor did the bishop ever tell me he received letters complaining about it. I did my job of catechizing the parish about it and did things slowly and methodically over the 12 years I was in Macon.
I simply don't have the energy to push this agenda in my new parish, because I feel it needs the full backing of the local bishop who is the primary liturgist of the diocese and it needs the backing of cardinals like Cardinal Sarah. But it also needs papal support which is lukewarm or non existent today.
Will Cardinal Sarah's vision of the renewal of the Ordinary Form of the Mass happen in the future? I don't know, but of course everyone knows that I am clairvoyant so I will venture, as a liturgical visionary, that it will happen--but not before I retire at the age of 70 when I will simply enjoy being a priest celebrating Mass free of all administrative headaches and in-house, hot-house liturgical and other politics associated with the Church today.
But I like this article from last August's National Catholic Register!!!
Facing East
It has been one year since our parish changed over to the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass facing the liturgical East. My decision to switch to ad orientem was prompted by Cardinal Sarah’s encouragement of the return to this ancient practice of the Church.
The reception of this change by parishioners has been largely positive. Visitors attending Mass naturally remark upon it, expressing in general surprise but only occasional dissatisfaction. Some remark that they are happy to participate in the Mass as they remember it from their childhood. The priests of the parish (and most visiting priests) have found this change to be a great improvement that promotes a prayerful and recollected celebration of Mass.
Cardinal Sarah spoke again recently about the celebration ad orientem in a conference published in the French magazine La Nef (July-August 2017). He said:
To be oriented towards God is before all else an interior action, a conversion of our soul towards the one God. The liturgy should foster in us this conversion towards the Lord who is the Way, the Truth, the Life. To do this it uses signs, simple means. The celebration [of Mass] ad orientem is part of this. It is one of the treasures of the Christian people that permit us to preserve the spirit of the liturgy. The oriented celebration should not become the expression of a partisan and polemical attitude. On the contrary, it should be the expression of the most intimate and essential movement of all liturgy: turning ourselves towards the Lord who comes.The spiritual truth that worship is a turning to the Lord is visually communicated to the worshiping faithful in the pews when the priest does not look at them when addressing God, but rather looks towards the crucifix, towards Christ, towards God.
Claudel’s insight rings true, in my experience. The priest celebrant leads and brings the people with him as he raises his hands and voice to God in prayer and worship. They are not spectators but rather fellow pilgrims who look with the priest towards Christ. In reply to the objection that the people need to see the entire liturgical action at the altar, which is not possible during the ad orientem celebration, Claudel writes: “It is true that in the traditional liturgy the most touching, the most moving part of the Holy Sacrifice is hidden from the view of the faithful. But it is not hidden from their hearts and their faith. To demonstrate this, during Solemn High Masses the sub-deacon stays at the foot of the altar during the Offertory, hiding his face with his left hand. We too are invited to pray, to withdraw into ourselves, not in a spirit of curiosity but of recollection.”
That recollection helps us to see with the eyes of faith the hidden presence of Christ in the sacred host and the chalice as they are elevated by the priest following the consecration. In the ad orientem celebration, the people do not have to look at the expression on the priest celebrant’s face (for weal or for woe) when he elevates the host and the chalice. This unnecessary distraction is eliminated and his role as mediator between God and man is best expressed when he offers no competition to the Holy Eucharist for the faithful’s glance.
Claudel further observed: “The novel liturgy deprives the Christian people of their dignity and their rights. It is no longer they who say the Mass with the priest, by ‘following’ it, as the saying very rightly goes, and to whom the priest turns from time to time to assure them of his presence, participation and cooperation, in the work which he undertakes in their name. All that remains is a curious audience watching him do his job. Small wonder that the impious compare him to a magician performing his act before a politely admiring crowd.”
My happy experience at the parish is that the ad orientem celebration of Mass, combined with the practice of the priest now sitting along the side wall of the sanctuary and no longer seated directly behind the free standing altar, has resulted in a more prayerful and Christ-centered liturgical experience. The priest celebrant is not an unending center of attention – as he can easily become when he first sits overlooking the congregation during the readings – and then when he stands behind the altar looking at the congregation while offering the prayers of the Mass to God.
Cardinal Sarah observes: “Allow me to express humbly my fear: the liturgy in the Ordinary Form could lead us to run the risk of turning ourselves away from God because of the overwhelming and central presence of the priest. He is constantly in front of the microphone, and ceaselessly has his eyes and his attention turned towards the people. He is like an opaque screen between God and man.”
After one year of the ad orientem celebration, I am absolutely convinced that Cardinal Sarah is correct. Turning physically and contemplatively towards the Lord promotes a deeper experience for both priest and people of prayer and worship at Mass.
17 comments:
THis is sad, truly sad. It sounds like the real problem is the bishop. You can always educate your congregation but if your bishop won't back you up when the doubleknit dinosaurs who know squat about their Faith come to whine about you, there is no point. A bishop who would not support ad orientem is a faux Catholic, unworthy of their office. Ad orientem is the inveterate practice and should have pride of place.
I am now in a deliberate holding back financial support mode. I used to give thousands each year between Peter's Pence, the Archdiocese and my territorial parish. Now I give them $0 and give the money to a parish where I attend the Latin Liturgy. And I make no secret of my reason. My territorial parish is dying on the vine. It used to have packed Sunday Masses when we had a pastor who "said the black and did the red" and refrained from politizing the Mass. At best today, when I dark in the door there, the principal Sunday Mass is half full, filled with older people. Please note, this parish is in the heart of an area filled with young, Catholic families. They have voted with their feet. Another Vatican Disaster II "success" story
I will be 67 in a few days and am still teaching math where I have for 28 years. I am also being evaluated this year, and of course the central issue is: are the students learning and what am I doing to make that happen? And so, my question to you, Fr. MacDonald, is, if Cardinal Sarah is correct, and I strongly believe he is, what will your new parishioners be learning, and who is going to teach them?
Whatever future the reform of the OF has will surely come not at the hands of popes and bishops--and certainly not the present last-gasp Vatican II hangovers--nor at the hands of a passing generation of priests scarred and tired by the debilitating liturgy wars of recent decades, but from a new generation of faithful young priests with energy and zest to begin the restoration of authentic Catholic liturgy and the re-Catholization of today's largely protestantized Catholic congregations.
9 years ago, our parish priest, a very devout and somehow trad priest began to celebrate the EF once a week after he had learnt how to say it since he was ordained in the eighties. The attendants were few and myself I tried to attend this mass as often as I could. But the attendance became scarce when the years passed and he was obliged to stop. He recently told me that he wished to start again this experience because his memory of the latin prayers and that of all the mass'steps sometimes fails. But he cannot begin anew without attendants and he asked me to help finding them.
Sincerely, I have no clue how to proceed with that aim
@jac.....You could start by posting it here! You could also post it here.....
http://www.ecclesiadei.org/masses.cfm
But if it is a middle of the week Mass than it will be slow going especially once a week. Young working families will not be able to attend and of course your retired 'spirit' of Vatican II will not attend. It would go a lot better if he could do a Sunday TLM. It would still take a while but you would eventually get the family that would be willing to drive a ways on a Sunday to attend. But even if it stays as a daily Mass Father is going to have to know that he will have low attendance for a while but he must keep going. Slowly word will spread just not as fast as if it was on a Sunday. One thing you can do besides putting it in the parish bulltin is to put a notice in the local paper. Many of them have a religion section. You could maybe put a notice in there that ..... Catholic Church will be offering a TLM.
If the decline in Mass attendance over the last fifty years continues for the next couple of decades, then all that will be left is a scattering of EF Masses and a lot of former Catholic churches sold off and converted into restaurants and mosques.
If priests and laymen had followed the lead of Pope Benedict, then VCII and the OF Mass could have been salvaged. But alas, that opportunity is now gone and effectively forgotten.
jac
All your PP needs to celebrate the EF Mass is a server. The idea that he needs an audience to dialogue with and preach at is a modern heresy. Every Mass is a manifestation of the public worship of the Church and is of immeasurable value and efficacy whether there is a congregation or not.
Don't be discouraged, Father, it is coming, but it's coming slowly.
In my parish, I have been patiently explaining and demonstrating, beginning with one weekday Mass, then two, and most recently, the biggest Mass on the holy day. What reaction I've gotten has been overwhelmingly positive. The most striking thing is that most haven't reacted. It really seems to be a non-issue, which itself is noteworthy.
I am going to continue offering the main Mass for holy days ad orientem, and after a year, if it continues to go well, I'm going to try it with one of the Sunday Masses.
Why a non-issue? I think that is because of work my predecessor did, and on which I have tried to build: namely, to offer the Holy Mass in such a way that it isn't about the celebrant. After many years of that, the people in my parish, I think, have come to see the Mass as mainly prayer -- quelle surprise! So which way the priest faces at the altar isn't that big a deal.
...I should say, of course it is a big deal, but it isn't something most of my parishioners find offensive. And again, those who have responded, have responded mostly in favor, and many of those enthusiastically. And that includes at least one "convert" -- i.e., someone who was skeptical at first, but now favors it.
jac:
If your parish priest is willing to celebrate the EF, then you need to put out notices on social media to inform those who would be interested in attending that one is available. Start an EF Facebook page. Do research on how to write a promotional flyer to interest and attract others and post where young people and any others who you think would attend hang out. Let them know why you like (or love) the EF. There will be some who come out of curiosity and hopefully some of them will keep coming back.
Simple answer, No.
Father Fox is taking a prudent and commonsense approach unlike the jack-sses in the 1960s who rammed their innovations down our throats. Talk about a lack of pastoralness!!!
Father, one thing that fills me with hope is that certain things have already been corrected since the council. In the past decade I have seen countless churches return the tabernacle to the center, and even more new ones being built with the tabernacle in the center. Eucharistic Adoration is also no longer disparaged as it was in the decades after the council, but is actually encouraged even Pope Francis is a big proponent of it. Also, statues and images have returned to old churches stripped of them, and new churches no longer have bare walls as the default. These are all very encouraging trends, we've already successfully recovered much. Ad orientem does not have the stigma that it once did, and it's been clarified that it is permitted.
Also, at least the Eastern Churches have never lost ad orientem, so we can always say that to disparage it is unecumenical!
Father:
Sadly, we will likely never see a melding of old and new. This pope simply will not have it and thus we won't. Your Bishop is powerless in real terms, to stand up. Free speech is not free anymore. Liberal fascism is now the new order, big and small; Church or secular. All roads lead to Rome and right now I prefer elsewhere.
Nope---it would require major changes (dollars) to change---moving a heavy altar from the middle of the church to the back, putting in altar rails. At my parish in 30327, the celebrant and the deacons sit behind the altar, so an ad orientem Mass in our current physicial alignment would look odd---celebrants facing a chair and wooden backdrop....
But such a move would be appreciated by the Eastern Orthodox. I was at St. Elias Antiochian Orthodox Church festival in Atlanta yesterday and browsed thru book there on Orthotodx views of Vatican Ii...while they liked the liturgy in the vernacular and communion in both species, they were not supportive of the liturgy facing the people---in fact, I have never been in an Eastern Orthodox Church where the altar is not at tbe back of the sanctuary.
Anonymous at 8:31 a.m.:
You are correct that in the Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, the altar/holy table is always centrally located, behind the iconostas/iconostasis (if there is one) however, it does not touch the wall rather, there is room for acolytes and those ordained to the minor orders to cross from side to side as well as for the priest or deacon to incense the sanctuary (here, called the altar) at appropriate times. The space behind the holy table is called the high place usually containing the bishops throne which will often have a book of gospels placed on the seat in his absence. Please see the attached.
Note: I'm not conversant on the arrangement of fixtures within the sanctuary for the Oriental Churches, both Catholic and Orthodox.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_place
Father -
I'm saddened to hear this though, I understand the reasoning behind the decision. Before totally giving up, however, might something as simple as a more substantial altar under the tabernacle make any difference? Something large enough to set 6 candles upon and, maybe, flowers for festive occassions? Add a few embellishments to that structure behind the altar maybe alpha/omega, symbols of the gospel writers etc? Commission an altar rail to match the other wooden fixtures? Would any of this perhaps cause a yearning for something more? So much time has passed, people need to be retaught what a truly Catholic experience is it would seem.
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