Liturgical Links, Opinion, and Shenanigans

Yesterday’s anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium was tackled by a number of Catholic blogs, but I’d like to draw your attention to two of them specifically.

Andrew Casad, Director of the Office for Liturgy at Archdiocese of Seattle, offers his reflections Celebrating Fifty Years of Sacrosanctum Concilium.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that Andrew gave a somewhat abbreviated version of this reflection during Sext (Midday Prayer) at Saint James Cathedral in Seattle yesterday, a service I was privileged to attend.

Earlier we heard proclaimed from Nehemiah a recounting of those wonderful works by which God brought about the salvation of the Jews. Following the destruction of and alienation from their homeland, the return from exile and rededication of the Temple must have seemed like a dream come true for the children of God (Ps 126). …

Gathered as a redeemed people around Nehemiah to once again offer right praise to the Lord, the Israelites saw their own experience of returning from exile as a living out of those very same ancient patterns of salvation and, converted by this encounter with the saving power of the living God, there and then entered once more into a firm pact, renewing for their part the covenant to which the Lord had always remained faithful.

Not unlike that end of exile, fifty years ago the world had emerged from a World War which saw destruction on a scale never before imagined and, at least in our nation, we entered into a dreamlike period of hope and prosperity. The spirit of the age looked forward to a new, modern world, a world orientated not toward the past but reaching toward the future, trusting in human ingenuity and science to solve problems, filled with aspirations and optimism.

But how were those aspirations, that optimism realized? I think we can agree that it hasn’t been all smooth sailing – and that’s fine.

It’s one thing to tackle something with joy – as we are called to do – and it’s quite another to get it perfectly right the first time. You dust yourself off, get back up, and try again. I see a lot of the liturgical craziness of the past decades that way.

And fifty years really is a short time in the history of the Church, no matter how long it seems to us who happen to be living through it.

To give you an idea of what Sacrosanctum Concilium actually called for, I draw your attention to an essay by Peter Kwasniewski that asks Is Your Liturgy Like What Vatican II Intended?

It really is an eye-opener.

I have to say that I’m extraordinarily fortunate, as quite a bit of what’s in this essay this tracks with my experiences at Sunday Mass in my home parish.

Having said that… Latin? Not so much. Sung Mass? Chant? Advent and Christmas.

These things we must build, step by step, over years or decades.

I fear that in many of our parishes, we’re still trying to get number 5 down:

5. No one, “even if he be a priest,” would ever “add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority” (SC 22.3).

Oh, the things I’ve seen in my previous parishes, and when visiting other parishes around the country.

Priests changing words in every line of the prayers – imagine if they had the temerity to change the Lord’s Prayer like they change the liturgical prayers?

Our Parent in heaven
Your name is holy.
May we make present the Kingdom…

I’ve been at a Mass where the Priest paraphrased the Gospel reading.

Bluegrass Mass? Bob Dylan and Billy Joel sound-alike Masses? Been there. When we were out camping in south-central Washington, a Protestant friend of mine went with me to the local Sunday Mass, and he described it as “the Country Bears’ Hootenanny Mass”.

And don’t get me started on the abuses I’ve seen during the Eucharistic Prayers. In any case, I’ve written of these things before.

Remember that I was only Baptized in 2005; I cannot begin to imagine what life-long Catholics have had to suffer with in these past decades.

Fortunately, we have increasing numbers of young, faithful, orthodox priests (and liturgists). In my experience, they’re far less likely to put up with these sort of shenanigans.

In his reflection, Andrew rightly points out that

… to this day the work initiated by Pope John XXIII and given expression in the liturgical reform ushered in by the bishops remains unfinished.

This is our call to arms.

We must step forward in joy to ponder God’s Word, to join our lives to the Sacrifice of Christ at Calvary made present on the altar, to become whom we receive, and to bear that Light and be a witness to a darkened world.

As Sacrosanctum Concilium reminds us, the sacred liturgy is “the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit” (SC 14) as well as “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed” (SC 10).

If we are to proclaim the Gospel in joy to the world, then we must first be nourished by the sacred liturgy. To receive all that we can, we must participate fully and actively in what the Church calls for the Mass to be.

Save the liturgy, save the world.