We Cannot Live Without The Mass

So says Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Denver.

And yet, what did I hear on Sunday? A pointed homily, starting with a joke. For every good Catholic knows that a homily must start with a joke, otherwise how could we pay attention? And every mass must begin and end with A Praise the Lord greeting, with a joke to close mass at the final blessing.

As if!

And Archbishop Chaput would agree with me. He said {We should } strive for liturgies that are reverent and beautiful, and that point our hearts and minds to things above.

So, what did I hear in the homily? I heard that the mass is about people. The priest said that the mass was about the people. That it is nice to pray and to pay attention to what happens at the altar (I think the priest meant the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass here; the consecration, when we receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord, under the appearance of bread and wine)...yes these are nice, we were told, but we need to be friendly, to talk to our brothers and sisters, to get to know people in the church. This is what church is about..not prayer or the niceness of what happens at the altar.

And so we were exhorted to wander around, to meet and greet, to talk, to chat, to laugh, to be noisy, to focus on people.

Liturgy is both the source of the Church’s mission and its goal, explained Archbishop Chaput. The reason we evangelize is in order to bring people into communion with the living God in the Eucharistic liturgy. And this experience of communion with God, in turn, impels us to evangelize.

Hmm. The opposite of what was preached Sunday. If one can call a joke, a pointed remark looking at certain members of the congregation, at those who don't shout out Praise The Lord and who kneel for communion and kneel in the pews in reflection after ..if this, followed by meet and greet your neighbour, can be called preaching, then this preaching seems contrary to all that Archbishop Chaput, indeed all that Pope Benedict XVI, has had to say about liturgy.

If the Liturgy appears first of all as the workshop for our activity, then what is essential is being forgotten: God. For the Liturgy is not about us, but about God. Forgetting about God is the most imminent danger of our age. As against this, the Liturgy should be setting up a sign of God's presence.

Yet what is happening, if the habit of forgetting about God makes itself at home in the Liturgy itself, and if in the Liturgy we are only thinking of ourselves? In any and every liturgical reform, and every liturgical celebration, the primacy of God should be kept in view first and foremost. (Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, as quoted in Benedict XVI and liturgical reform)

Worship first, then evangelization. Evangelization through liturgy and formation. God first, worship first and this love then attracts others and goes out to others.

Perhaps logic and rhetoric should be taught in seminaries, if they are not already. For it seems to me that the homily mentioned above,contained a fallacy of logic.

There was a false dichotomy created, a dichotomy between praying at Mass, caring about liturgy and caring for people. As though the two states are related in an opposite fashion ie if one cares about prayer and liturgy in mass then one doesn't care about people, hasn't a friendly word for a fellow parishioner.

This is bunk, pure and honest garbage. There is no dichotomy between care for liturgy and care for people.

We need to recover the intrinsic and inseparable connection between liturgy and evangelization. Liturgy is both the source of the Church’s mission and its goal. This was the teaching of Christ and the practice of the early Church. And it was reaffirmed by Vatican II....life lived from the Eucharist and for the Eucharist. This should be the foundation not only for our thinking about the liturgy but for our pastoral strategies as well....we cannot look at the liturgy as something distinct from our mission. Our worship of God in the Mass is meant to be an act of adoration, submission and thanksgiving. It’s also meant to be loving acceptance of our vocation as disciples. That’s why every Eucharistic liturgy ends on a missionary note -- we are sent out, commissioned to share the treasure we have discovered with everyone we meet.(Archbishop Chaput again)

When we look at the lives of the Saints, we see that prayer and love of God led to love of neighbour, that prayer and adoration and contemplation preceded social justice and action and that these , prayer and liturgy and social activism and good old fashioned works of charity, existed alongside each other. Were, in fact, are, in fact, co-existent.

The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of his Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord's Supper.(Sacrosanctum Concilium)

We cannot live without the mass, as Archbishop Chaput said. We need our prayers, the sacred liturgy, our holy priests, good catechesis (not exercises in feeling good)..and we need to share this with others. Our interior life forms our external life…for, if faith without works is dead, surely works without faith, without the underpinning of prayer, without our hearts and mind being lifted to God in sacred liturgy, are dead too…are do-goodism and me-centred.

A speaker at mass , asking for donations to the Sacrificial Offering, said that we need money for parish events and that if we invite people to our barbecues and our carols and our social functions, they will eventually come to church. But, you know what? There are many, many people who come for social functions who will not come regularly to Sunday mass. They feel good about themselves and so they think that church is about a social life, feeling good, and they don’t need to go to mass.

How do we turn this around? If we make our churches about social activities, then this is the response we get..people attending the social functions, the me-centred big event liturgies but not people who attend mass week in and week out. They see no need for God, for mass, for religion, in their every day life..apart from the social calendar.

If, however, our liturgy sets us apart, inspires us, makes us shine with Love, makes our parishes vibrant with prayer, then others will see a difference. There will be a difference in our worship, in how we act, in how we show what we believe…and then the church is not just another church competing with social functions but a living, growing community of faith..in worship and then in action.

This being different attracts others. Not endless cups of tea and chatting in church…but prayer, a prayer life permeating all that we do. Starting with sacred liturgy and good catechesis, and extending to our morning teas, our women’s groups, our young men’s group, our youth group.

You know, if the the message in church is nothing more than Oprah dressed up in (vague) Christian language. then given a choice, most people would rather listen to Oprah. Or Dr Phil. At least they are up-front about what they're doing. And you aren't exhorted to give money.

And statistics prove this to be true. A large mega-church in Australia, with good social activities, also has a fairly high turn around figure with regard to members. The average member lasting six years, before moving on.

So, we don't want our parishes to go this way, away from sacred liturgy and to consumer style religion.

Statistics, also, prove the reverse to be true ie that sacred liturgy and prayer, attracts people, young people, and encourages vocations.

The most successful institutes in terms of attracting and retaining new members at this time are those that follow a more traditional style of religious life in which members live together in community and participate in daily Eucharist, pray the Divine office, and engage in devotional practices together. They also wear a religious habit, work together in common apostolates, and are explicit about their fidelity to the Church and the teachings of the Magisterium. All of these characteristics are especially attractive to the young people.Booming Traditional Religious Orders

Lex orendi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.

The rule of prayer is the rule of belief, and consequently the rule of life.