This post closely follows and expands upon my last post which focused on the Church’s sacramental life, especially as it relates to the Holy Mass.
The sacraments are the key constitutive elements in the grace filled communication that exists between God and man. The sacraments are the foundational parts of our worship structure while the liturgy, the process or worship, is the dynamic structure in which they live. Worship surrounds the sacraments like the beauty of a monstrance surrounds the ultimate beauty of our Lord and Savior in the Holy Eucharist. As a monstrance reflects our human effort at giving glory, worship, and praise to God, our worship gives glory and praise to God.
Imagine, if you will, a liturgical experience that simply covers the core. In the PNCC you would have an imparting of penance and absolution, the reading, psalm, epistle, gospel, and homily, an epiclesis and institution narrative, and the distribution of the Eucharist. There’s a lot there, and I don’t mean to downplay the fact that those elements are essential, but such a liturgy would be sparse, like a museum with beautiful works of art set against unfinished walls (no offence to avant garde displays).
A little bit on my personal history ties in here. I was raised in Buffalo’s Kaisertown section, and grew up in the shadow of the glory that was St. Casimir’s R.C. Church — Byzantine architecture, glorious altar, art, statuary, pipe organ, seating 1,500 congregants. My church life began prior to the abuses that followed Vatican II. When I began serving at the altar the priests still opened drawers, one for each color of fiddleback chasuble. They vested slowly, with care. Each experience of the Holy Mass, each extra-liturgical service, conveyed what was intended, the sadness of the penitent; the glory of the resurrection. The chalice was a chalice, the priests keen on proper liturgy. As one of my college professors once stated: ‘The architecture of the church is about lifting ones eyes and hearts to the light of God.’ They had that and more spot on.
Needless to say, my journey post 1980 was a procession of disappointments. It wasn’t the architecture of the churches I was in, since in Buffalo nearly every city parish was a near cathedral. In the older churches the disciplined priests were gone; at least those disciplined enough to care about the Church as something greater than them. In the newer churches it was rather that the liturgy mimicked their architecture — thrown together, undisciplined, made up, wing-it on the fly liturgy. Moving to Albany I found it only got worse. Those of us who have been around long enough to know the difference saw it coming in dribs and drabs. We weren’t lifting our eyes and hearts to God in the liturgy any more; we cared more about ourselves and our show.
Not to be a quitter I kept looking. I explored parishes. I sought, but I didn’t find. I even tried R.C. indult MassesThe older, pre 1962, form of the R.C. Church’s Rite which is now more generously allowed for. The allowance for offering this Rite is available to all Roman Catholic Western Rite priests excepting those in the dioceses of the various bishops who ‘illegally’ oppose it (many). This Rite of the Holy Mass is still offered in Latin, and as I have posited, the Latin will act as an impediment to broader acceptance and understanding. It will remain a cold relic unable to speak its beauty to the vast majority of the faithful who would otherwise accept it.. Maybe that was the turning point. I had romanticized it, thought it would speak to me again, but it was cold —“ a cold language done with cold gestures for the sake of gesture. I was acclimated to and desired entertainmentWhy many Roman Catholics, especially in the U.S., will miss out on what is being conveyed in the older Rite. They want entertainment and what they perceive as relevancy. The brainwashing has been effective.. I was there for me —“ not for God. I felt something had been stolen from me.
People may say that the Holy Mass is all about disposition, using your intellect as a remedy to overcome the failings of the priest and the architect. We’re supposed to be there for God after all! Those who believe that intellect is the arbiter see man as a dichotomy, as an intellect in opposition to the body. That argument is false on its face. God speaks to man as a whole. God’s desire was the very reason God became incarnate. God didn’t come to us as body alone or intellect alone, but as man —“ to speak to man.
The Church needs to unite man’s mind and body, bringing the totality of our being before God. We cannot overcome a Church’s failing through intellect alone. We cannot reason our way out of a forced dichotomy, a dichotomy where the Church says one thing, but does something entirely different (on a regular basis). The liturgy is that place in which the Church unites man’s mind, body, and soul in praise of God.
My search continued until my wife stumbled upon a PNCC parish that was holding all the traditional rites, blessings, and liturgies for Holy Week and Easter. I thought: well ok, perhaps. I wasn’t sure —“ and my Roman Catholic fears jumped right up to confront me. Would I go straight to hell if I tried this, even once? It’s silly in retrospect. Unfortunately many in the Roman Church live at that level; they fail to take the chance to free themselves from worship that leaves them cold, confused, or uncertain.
I sat in Church expectant, hungry, and there it was: liturgy, beautiful liturgy, in English, with solemnity that befitted the worship of God, and that was carried out with a genuine heart. The parish’s architecture was a blending of old and new. It was beautiful, not a cathedral, but beautiful. Best of all the Rites and the Holy Mass weren’t banal. It wasn’t off-the-cuff. The priest said the black and did the red, but with love for the Church’s worship. The parish cared, the priest cared. Wow!
The PNCC does worship beautifully. I experience the beauty of God in the Church’s liturgy, in its extra-liturgical devotions, in every manner from the way our bishops and priests vest to the way they pray. In big and small ways our liturgy is all about lifting our eyes, our hearts, our voices, and our minds to God. We meet God in our liturgy and we meet him as men and women who are body, mind, and soul. When you visit a PNCC parish, pick up a pew missal. You can actually follow along because no one is winging the Holy Mass.
I am blessed, as are many PNCC parishes, in that my priest offers the different Rites for the Holy Mass (Traditional, the Hodur Rite, and the Contemporary). By offering the different Rites, in the yearly cycleNot many Roman Catholics can say that they’ve experienced, or even know about, the different Rites available in their own Church, from the Byzantine and the various Eastern Rites to the Mozarabic, Ambrosian, Dominican, Bragan, Carmelite, or Carthusian, we keep in touch with the larger prayer of the Church, i.e., the totality of the Church’s prayer. Our priest offers the Holy Mass facing the liturgical East regardless of the Rite, and it works. We all face God in our prayer.
Our liturgies are beautiful. Our liturgies are that glorious monstrance with Christ at the center, surrounded by the Holy Mass and further gloried by those dear devotions (May Crowning, Marian, Sacred Heart, Precious Blood, Rosary, Bitter Lamentations, Stations of the Cross, processions, special blessings, so much more) which highlight, worship, praise, and glorify the multitude of God’s aspect.
