With apologies to my priest-friend, though, I maintain that Mass is not always equally the Mass, or, at least, it is often a mere shadow of what it could be.
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| A diaconal ordination at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Parish, Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., on May 28, 2009. |
My premise is that the Eucharist and the Mass are not synonymous terms. The Eucharist is the sacrament by which we share in the fruits of Christ's redemptive sacrifice. Sacraments either are, or they aren't. The infant in danger of death who is baptized by a nurse in the hospital is just as thoroughly baptized as the finely dressed baby baptized by a high-ranking prelate in a cathedral with all the requisite pomp and circumstance. In issuing a declaration of nullity, a Church tribunal does not consider the beauty or solemnity of the rite but whether some issue with the intention, or with the matter or form, rendered the conferral of the sacrament of matrimony invalid.
A sacrament is a sacrament, period. Yet sacraments ought to be be celebrated in circumstances that facilitate the conveyance of grace. After all, that is the only reason sacraments exist.
We could easily descend into a litany of complaints about illicitly or irreverently celebrated Masses that obscure rather than facilitate the reality of Christ's sacrifice and that keep people from a fruitful reception of the sacrament. Sometimes it's due to a celebrant who for whatever reason--his physical or spiritual ill-health, the overwhelming nature of his schedule, a prideful preference for his "own way"--fails to take the time, the care, or the reverence that the solemn ritual demands of him. Other times there are things beyond a priest's immediate control--the way a parish has "always done things," the physical nature of the worship space, the lector or cantor with peculiar mannerisms: All these things make the Mass less capable of conveying grace because they call attention to themselves rather than to the mystery unfolding in the Eucharistic sacrifice.
All these things should highlight to priests and other liturgical ministers the importance of a Mass celebrated as faithfully as possible in order to open up the reality of the Christ's redemptive sacrifice for the faithful. Nonetheless, there is no such thing as a perfectly celebrated Mass, no matter how reverent, no matter how faithful to the rubrics. Priests are imperfect human beings with their own foibles and weaknesses. The liturgy demands preaching of the priest who stutters and singing of the priest who can't carry a tune. Even when a priest or a cantor sings beautifully, the music that helps many people to focus may be distracting to others. Even when incense helps to elevate the solemnity of the liturgy, it may lead some people to have coughing fits. The earthly liturgy, with its sensible signs and symbols, is at best a faint prefigurement and a feeble foretaste of the perfect, eternal liturgy of heaven.
As St. Paul puts it in the famous King James translation, here on earth we "see through a glass, darkly" (1 Cor 12:13). God hid His divinity from Jacob in the form of an angel, from Moses in a burning bush, and from Elijah in an earthquake, a fire, and a whisper. The Second Person of the Holy Trinity concealed His Divine Person and Nature in a human nature in order to be born as an infant in the rudest of conditions and to die for mankind in the most brutal. Now He comes among us under the species of bread and wine at Holy Mass, confected in the most imperfect of celebrations and received by the most unworthy of communicants. I've often wondered at the fact that Almighty God, knowing that He will be trampled underfoot or hidden in the pages of missalettes, nonetheless comes among us in such a vulnerable way.
Although not every Mass is equally the Mass, although not every Mass equally prepares the faithful to receive the fruits of Christ's redemptive sacrifice, the relevant sage advice for us, I think, is not to let the perfect become the enemy of the good. After all, God Himself doesn't. The fact is, God has the humility to enter into imperfect conditions, in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago and in every single Mass where a priest with right intention utters the words of consecration over bread and wine. Far be it from me to suggest that the priest and liturgical ministers shouldn't do their part, and yes, sometimes priests need to be called out. But the questions is, do we let a priest's lack of effort, his ill-preparation, his foibles and imperfections, become our focus? Getting us to concentrate on what is wrong with the liturgy and to gripe about it, I think, is the Devil's greatest trick for serious, knowledgeable Catholics. Put another way, if God can make lemonade with lemons such as ourselves, then the least that we can do is help things along by not being such sour-pusses.
The challenge is to concentrate on what is right with the celebration of each Mass, for every Mass, insofar as it is said rightly enough that the Eucharist is confected, has something of infinite value in it. Really, this is what my priest-friend is trying to say, and he is very much in the right: God has come among us and desires to join Himself to us. If we receive Him in humility, in imitation of His own humility, then the Mass will indeed be the Mass, period.
Domine, non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum, sed tantum dic verbo et sanabitur anima mea.
Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.
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