The Possibly Dubious Liturgical Legacy of Leonardo’s Last Supper

While I was kneeling in a church recently, I started to look more closely at its Gothic high altar, and noticed that the bas relief scene on the front of the altar just below the mensa reproduced, with a high degree of exactitude, the famous, possibly too famous, Last Supper painting by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), the 500th anniversary of whose death has been celebrated throughout 2019.

Leonardo’s Last Supper and many others paintings like it — Ghirlandaio’s at San Marco and Andrea del Castagno’s at the convent of St Apollonia, both in Florence; Giovan Pietro da Cemmo’s in the convent of St Augustine in Crema, etc. — were painted for the refectories of religious houses; they were not intended as images for churches, much less for sanctuaries of churches. The open, longitudinal arrangement was designed to place Christ at the center, to make the action at the table clearly visible, and to separate Judas more evidently from the rest of the Apostles. The spiritual lesson of such refectory paintings was manifold: that one should see the figure of Christ in one’s religious superior at the head table; that one should decide to be among the good apostles by being a good and obedient religious, and not faithless like Judas; that one should remember how every meal shared with the brethren bears a likeness to this banquet of supreme charity, which explains why the refectory service is a little liturgy in its own right.

Regarding the Rule of St. Benedict, Dom Mark Kirby, OSB, comments:

The liturgy of the refectory is sacred; the rubrics that govern it safeguard its Eucharistic character so that the words of the Apostle may be rightly fulfilled in the monastery day after day: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). All are to come to refectory without delay and in time for the verse and the prayer, and all, says Saint Benedict, are to sit down together at table. A Benedictine monk never “grabs a bite” or eats in an individualistic manner. He enters into the liturgical order of the refectory, before, during, and after the meal, taking care to conform to the corporate actions of the whole community. One who despises the liturgy of the common table will be separated from it and even deprived of his portion of wine — a terrible punishment for the Mediterranean man — in order to be brought to his senses.

Benedictines honour the liturgy of eating and drinking in the refectory, and see the refectory as a kind of mirror of the Oratory. Even the disposition is same as in the choir: the tables facing each other; the Prior’s table with the crucifix behind it; the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and the reader’s desk. Twice daily the refectory resounds with the chanting of psalms and prayers. Like the Oratory, the refectory is a place of silence. It is also a place of joy, according to what Saint Luke writes in the Book of Acts: “They took their share of food with gladness and simplicity of heart” (Acts 2:46).

Because Leonardo’s Last Supper was in a refectory, it was not really intended for “public consumption.” Therefore, the hypothesis I will float concerns not so much this great artist’s intentions for his piece as it does deleterious consequences of an overuse of replications of it in modern churches.

Returning now to the altar sculpture: the figure of Christ dominated in the center, looking squarely out at me, with His disciples gathered round. Although I have seen this image a thousand times, I was suddenly struck by the impression that, placed front and center at the altar, this might look somewhat like a priest celebrating Mass versus populum:

In his superb overview of the history, form, and theology of the classical Roman rite (due to appear soon from Angelico Press), Michael Fiedrowicz offers a gentle critique of Leonardo:

Luther had already invoked the Last Supper practice of Jesus for his corresponding demand [that the Eucharist should be celebrated versus populum]. A new type of visual representation that began to be implemented during the thirteenth century must have been formative for his notion of the events of that time. This representation is familiar in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper: Jesus sitting on the rear side of a table in the middle of the Apostles, turned toward the observer of the scene. If Mass were made to correspond to this artistic presentation, the priest should stand at the altar across from the people and turn his gaze on them. This argument, however, is based on a misapprehension of ancient table manners as they would have been practiced at the Last Supper. There was at that time either a round or a semicircular table at whose open front side the food would be brought, while those partaking of the meal sat or reclined at the rear semicircle of the table. The place of honor was not in the middle, but rather on the right side. The one presiding over a meal never had another partaker across from his place. These original arrangements are shown in the oldest representations of the Last Supper until the Middle Ages. If this finding alone prevents the derivation of celebrating versus populum from Jesus’ practice at the Last Supper, a look at the historical beginnings of the Eucharistic celebration demonstrates yet more that the primitive Church’s congregation in no way repeated the Last Supper as such and did not consider the meal as the ritual original form of the Eucharist.

It is more than a little chilling to read the following words of Martin Luther and to reflect on the current situation of Roman Catholic worship: “But in the true Mass among genuine Christians, the altar would not have to remain so [sc. facing east], and the priest would always turn to the people, as without doubt Christ did at the Lord’s Supper. Well, that will be so in good time” (Deutsche Messe und Ordnung des Gottesdienstes, 1526 [WA 19, 80]).

In his book No Trifling Matter: On the Inviolability of the Sacraments (Angelico, 2018), Msgr. Nicola Bux makes a similar point:

Not a few people hold that it was only in late antiquity or the early Middle Ages that the Churches of the East and the West began to prefer administering it directly in the mouth. But did Jesus give communion to the apostles on the hand or asking them to take it with their own hands? Visiting an exhibition of Tintoretto in Rome, I observed some “Last Suppers” in which Jesus gives communion to the apostles in the mouth. One could think that this has to do with an interpretation by the painter after the fact, a little like the posture of Jesus and the apostles at table, in the cenacle of Leonardo, which “updates” in the Western manner the Jewish custom, which was, instead, to be reclining at table. Reflecting further on this, the custom of giving communion to the faithful directly in the mouth can be considered not only as a Jewish tradition, and therefore apostolic, but also as going back to the Lord Jesus. The Jews and the peoples of the East in general had and today still have the custom of taking food with one’s hands and placing it directly in the mouth of the lover or the friend. In the West this is done between couples in love and by the mother toward her little one, who is still inexperienced. The text of John is understood in this way: “Jesus then answered him [John]: ‘It is he to whom I shall give a morsel of dipped bread.’ Then, having dipped a morsel of bread, he gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. And as soon as he had taken the mouthful Satan entered into him” (13:26–27). But what should be said about the invitation of Jesus: “Take and eat. . . . Take and drink”? Take (in Greek, labete; in Latin, accipite) also means receive. If the mouthful is dipped, it cannot be taken with the hands; rather it is received directly into the mouth. It is true that Jesus consecrated bread and wine separately. But if during the “mystic supper” (as the East calls it) or Last Supper, the two consecrating gestures happened, so it seems, in different phases of the Paschal supper, nevertheless after Pentecost the apostles, aided by Jewish priests who had converted (cf. Acts 6:7), and who were, as we would say, experts in religious worship, united the gestures within the great Eucharistic prayer. (94–95)

My experience has been that a lot of Catholic church altars — especially the less expensive ones in the United States that were trying to look “traditional,” from the late 19th century up to the middle of the 20th — feature exactly this image of Leonardo’s Last Supper carved into the front, where the priest and people would see it day after day after day. (Note, however, that according to older rubrics, such art should be visible only between the stripping of the altar on Maundy Thursday and the Easter Vigil; for the remaining 362/3 days of the year, it would be masked by the antependium. Alas, antependia tended to go the way of all flesh and are making a slow return at best.) Here is another example:

I wonder . . . Might this have something to do with slowly disposing everyone to reimagine the Mass as an imitation of the Last Supper, and not even as a Jewish meal, but as a banquet fictitiously depicted by Leonardo? Perhaps the near-ubiquity of the faux supper made it easier, when the time came, to justify the dismantling of a high altar that bore upon itself an image seemingly in contradiction with it, while at the same time installing a free-standing table that permitted the “presider” to imitate Leonardo’s Christ, and perhaps the concelebrating clergy to imitate Leonard’s apostles circled round the table.

Now, if we look at churches with much older altars, or Liturgical Movement altars, we will see a far greater variety of iconographical images carved into the fronts of altars: the Lamb, especially; wreaths, palms, and other arborial designs; angels; cosmatesque patterns; etc. It seems much more appropriate for an altar to have such symbolic designs or to be dressed in cloth altar frontals in liturgical colors than to bear the by-now overdone Leonardo spin-off. It just goes to show how a work of artistic but ahistorical genius can intersect with commercial demand to flood the market with well-intentioned but conceptually harmful kitsch.

I am not an art historian but simply someone keenly interested in the fine arts and in ecclesiastical art in particular. I would therefore be grateful if any readers have more thoughts or information pertinent to this theory of a possible relationship between the introduction of versus populum and the emblazoning of modern church altars with decontextualized Last Suppers.

One can find images of Christ standing at the other side of the altar (over against the viewer) in Byzantine iconography as well, but this depiction does not, to my eye, suggest versus populum as a manner of celebrating, if only because the cross and book seem set up for ad orientem worship; certainly the iconographic style makes it easier to see such an image rather as the expression of a mysterious present reality, the Lord coming into our midst through the liturgy we offer to Him and He offers through us, than of an historical event, a Jewish Passover meal, in dramatic reenactment, as the Leonardo so strongly (but misleadingly) conveys.

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website for articles, sacred music, and classics reprinted by Os Justi Press (e.g., Newman, Benson, Scheeben, Parsch, Guardini, Chaignon, Leen, Roguet, Croegaert), his SoundCloud page for lectures and interviews, and his YouTube channel for talks and sacred music.

“Eat That Which I Will Give You”: Why We Receive Communion in the Mouth

In this month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, when we especially ponder the most wondrous gift devised by His love, the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, it is appropriate to dwell for a moment on why receiving the Holy Eucharist directly into the mouth is the only right way to receive the Lord, against the backdrop of centuries of unanimous practice in East and West that must accordingly be considered a development guided by the Holy Spirit — for otherwise, we would surely have to conclude that the universal Church of Christ, in both its Eastern and Western spheres, had gone off the rails in its second millennium.

Some arguments may be said to be obvious. For example, if one really believes that a priest is set aside by a divine act of transformation to be an alter Christus who, at the altar, brings about the very same miracle that Christ the High Priest brought about at the Last Supper in anticipation of His atoning sacrifice on Calvary, one will see immediately that he is the one authorized by God to handle the most holy gifts and to distribute them to men. While there may be exceptions for emergencies, clearly the ministerial priest alone will be the fitting transmitter of the Bread of Angels into the mouths of Christians.

Again, if one believes that the entire substance of the bread is converted into the entire substance of Christ, with the accidents of bread alone remaining (as St. Thomas explains with unsurpassed rigor), one will invariably arrive at the conclusion that the distribution of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist must be done in such a way as to minimize as radically as possible any dispersion or loss of fragments of bread, that is, crumbs or specks. Distribution of larger or crumblier altar breads, and above all distribution into the hand, is directly and obviously opposed to the infinitely higher good of honoring God in Himself and avoiding the sin of sacrilege against Him.

A Coptic Christian receives Communion

I absolutely agree with such arguments. However, what struck me in lectio divina was what the Lord Himself had to say about it. In the prophet Ezekiel, we read, “Open thy mouth, and eat that which I will give thee” (2:8). In the Psalms, we read, “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Ps 80:11).

Who is the “I” in these statements? Clearly, it is the Lord. It is the Lord alone who may feed us.

This is the deepest reason why, in the divine liturgy, in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, it must be the ordained minister who, as acting in persona Christi, distributes the Bread of Angels to the communicants.

This mode of receiving — common to East and West — symbolizes and emphasizes several truths at once.

1. The one doing the feeding is Christ. I do not feed myself.

2. I am, in fact, incapable of nourishing myself supernaturally; I must be fed, like a little child, an elderly person, or someone handicapped. Yes, I am able to come forward to the communion rail, unlike the paralytic carried on the stretcher in the Gospel; but once I reach the threshold of divinity, it is imperative that I demonstrate — to myself and in the sight of others — that at this threshold I must kneel or take a passive stance and allow myself to be acted upon. I am not there to feed myself as an autonomous agent, or to collect something I can add to my personal life portfolio; rather, I am “imposed upon” and thus altered. The divine food is more powerful than I am, and I submit to it.

3. The food is entering immediately into my body — that is, I surrender myself to the insertion of the Word from without, and make myself passive and receptive to it. In a word, vulnerable. I am not “in control”; I am not the one who determines the conditions or the timing under which Christ will act on me. By coming forward and submitting to the hand of another, I relinquish my mastery. There is no moment between reception and eating; to receive is to eat.

A Marxist economic exchange

4. There is a clear hierarchical distinction between the one giving the divine gift and the one receiving it. For once, the traditional Western practice spells this out even more clearly than the Eastern does. In the East, the communicant usually has to bend his legs or crouch a little to bring his mouth to the right angle for the spoon to deposit its precious freight, but in the West, because the communicant kneels down at an altar rail or prie-dieu while the priest or deacon remains standing, there is a very strong differentiation of persons and actions. The relationship is reminiscent of streams flowing down from a mountaintop to the lakes below, or the descent of the dove on the baptized. The conferral of the manna “from above” imitates of the descent of the Son of God in His Incarnation, in order to lift us up to His heavenly glory.

Communion in the hand systematically undermines all of these symbolic and ascetical aspects of the act of Eucharistic communion. By getting the host in my hand, I become the one who feeds myself. I am now a “grown up” vis-à-vis God, with whom I relate on my terms: I determine when I put this host into my mouth (or, as in well-documented cases, take it away for a rainy day, or make it a souvenir, or put it in the hymnal, or give it to someone else, or use it in a Satanic ritual or an act of blasphemy). I am parleying with the Word, rather than suffering It. At the threshold of divinity, I assert my independence and control. In the modern Western context (which is decidedly not the ancient context), standing for communion means: I come to Christ and His Church on my own terms.

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Consecrated Buildings and Their Officially Sponsored Profanation

The back of the monastery chapel in Norcia

The Rule of St. Benedict has as one of its many virtues the ability to capture an entire vision of things in one lapidary phrase. There is not a single wasted word; what Benedict means to say, he says with vigor, brevity, and clarity. A splendid example is chapter 52, “Of the Oratory of the Monastery,” where the Patriarch writes:

Let the oratory be what its name implies, and let nothing else be done or kept there. When the Work of God is finished, let all go out in deep silence, and let reverence for God be observed, so that any brother who may wish to pray privately be not hindered by another’s misbehavior. And at other times also, if anyone wish to pray secretly, let him just go in and pray: not in a loud voice, but with tears and fervor of heart. He, therefore, who does not behave so, shall not be permitted to remain in the oratory when the Work of God is ended, lest he should, as we have said, be a hindrance to another. [1]

I have often wished that this text would be carved into wood or stone and mounted at the door of every Catholic church throughout the world, printed in every bulletin, and preached from every pulpit, with such unfailing regularity that the pervasive anteliturgical and postliturgical chitchat by which the reverent silence of the temple of God is globally snatched away Sunday after Sunday might begin to be suppressed and reduced to naught. I don’t know if it would work, but I’ve often wondered why so few pastors ever make the attempt to restore “deep silence” to our churches. It may have to do with a sinking feeling that the good habits of preconciliar days are gone forever and will not return among the cellphone barbarians in the pews; it may have to do with a simple loss of belief in the church as a sacred place. Considering that many suburban churches fall somewhere along the spectrum between a Jet Propulson Laboratory and a beige-carpeted athletics facility, it may not be surprising that the sense of sacrality is absent, even eradicated.

Earlier in the Rule, in chapter 19, “On the Discipline of Psalmody,” St. Benedict bears witness to the dignity of the church and of the opus Dei that takes place in it, deducing thence what our inner and outer attitudes should be:

We believe that God is present everywhere and that the eyes of the Lord in every place behold the good and the evil (Prov. 15, 3); but let us especially believe this without any doubting when we are performing the Divine Office. Therefore, let us ever remember the words of the prophet: Serve ye the Lord in fear (Ps. 2, 11); and again, Sing ye wisely (Ps. 46, 8); and, In the sight of the angels will I sing to thee (Ps. 137, 2). Let us then consider how we ought to behave ourselves in the presence of God and his angels, and so sing the psalms that mind and voice may be in harmony. [2] 

This text helps us to grasp two lessons: the sacred liturgy is the time when, by God’s own design and good pleasure, we are most of all held to be standing in His divine Presence, yielding up our minds and hearts to Him; and the oratory or church in which we are doing this “Work of God” is a place like no other, a place consecrated for the sole purpose of worshiping God. In a well-known passage, Augustus Welby Pugin conveys this point with Victorian lavishness:

[The church] is, indeed, a sacred place; the modulated light, the gleaming tapers, the tombs of the faithful, the various altars, the venerable images of the just, — all conspire to fill the mind with veneration, and to impress it with the sublimity of Christian worship. And when the deep intonations of the bells from the lofty campaniles, which summon the people to the house of prayer, have ceased, and the solemn chant of the choir swells through the vast edifice — cold, indeed, must be the heart of that man who does not cry out with the Psalmist, Domine, dilexi decorem domus tuae, et locum habitationis gloriae tuae. [3]

Drawing on the insights of Benedict and Pugin, we might state this principle: The church building is the most sacred space we have; as a result, it is there that we will learn — or not learn — the meaning of the very distinction between sacred and profane. If there is not a strong sense, upon entering a church, of passing from one domain to another, of leaving the world (to some extent) and entering a different realm, of going from an earth-bound atmosphere in which we are at ease to a celestial temple that calls forth reverential fear, I am afraid there will usually be nothing else that offers an equally powerful communication of the distinction. There are, to be sure, other ways to evoke the distinction, such as the sound of Gregorian chant even in a Mass celebrated outdoors or in a humble tent; but the sacred space, the “oratory,” is normally the most obvious, impressive, durable, stable, all-encompassing sign of the sacred that we have. It either says to you: “This is God’s house, where you will meet Him in a special way — tread quietly, watch and pray”; or it says “This is just a building, where you can amble around, talk, text, take selfies, joke, sleep, or eat a snack.”

Selfie in a church

Eminent liturgical theologian Msgr. Nicola Bux writes in his book No Trifling Matter: Taking the Sacraments Seriously Again (a book I highly recommend):

Jacob understood, once awakened from sleep: “Indeed, the Lord is in this place.” He became conscious of the fact, he was afraid, and said: “How awe-inspiring is this place! This is none other than the house of God, this is the gate of heaven.” [4] The divine presence pushes the patriarch to fashion the stone, on which he had slept and received the dream, into a stele, the primitive altar, and to anoint it on top. We would say: to consecrate it. God, in fact, had established his abode, his house; for this reason he changed the name and called that place Bethel, in Hebrew, house of God. That stone founded the house of God.
          Consecration renders the Lord always present in a place made by human hands, and increases reverent fear and devotion for the abode and house of God. Consecration changes the designated use of the place: it cannot be used for profane purposes.
          But unfortunately today things are not always like that! And so God leaves us, is not with us, does not protect and accompany us in the journey of life, does not feed us, does not make us return safe and sound to our home. [5]

Later on, Bux speaks at greater length of the grave significance of the consecration of a church — something that changes it objectively and permanently. His words are worth quoting in full:

Though much emphasized as regards the effects and the changes it calls forth in the place that has been chosen for the purpose, the dedication of a building to Christian worship is very quickly forgotten these days: in fact, one is frequently present at the profanation of everything that was offered to the Lord with such a rite. …
          In the Ordinary Form of 1977, the Mass of dedication underlines the will of the ecclesial community to dedicate the new building to divine worship, in an exclusive and perpetual way. In particular, the presence of the sacrament and the altar do not permit any other use; in fact they are there to recall to us that the church is the sign of the heavenly sanctuary where Jesus Christ has penetrated, in order to appear before the sight of God on our behalf (Heb. 9, 24).
          Liturgists would say that for the sake of the truth of the sign, a church cannot be employed for purposes other than worship, on pain of gravely offending the Lord to whom it has been offered. Besides, its dedication is rightly commemorated every year on the anniversary day, especially within the church that was consecrated. It is therefore a grave error that, in practice, the consecration we have just described is emptied of meaning in our day by the actions of priests themselves, with the holding of events incompatible with the sacred place: concerts, performances, ballets, meetings of every type, which at one time were done outside or “in front of the temple,” as the Latin word pro-fanum recalls; the phenomenon of using churches for concerts of not only sacred but also profane music seems unstoppable. Acts that are not sacred, and normally done elsewhere, bring with them a profanation of the church. …
          Welcome cannot be given to profane actions of this type, or to any others, in the place where the divine mysteries are celebrated. How is it possible that bishops and priests have forgotten that such a place as that, so often built with sacrifice by the faithful, has been “dedicated” — a word that recalls the act with which something very personal is offered to someone who is loved. To dedicate something means that it is no longer mine, but his. If I were to take it back, that would be a betrayal. It is a grave matter, because we take from God that which is his, what we ourselves had sworn we would give him. The rite itself of dedication shows that it is a kind of oath or vow, that is, a sacred act. What need is there for such solemnity, if afterwards the sacred place is employed for profane uses?
          Liturgists exalt the rite of dedication, but in contradiction with that, they go silent and speak not a word in the face of the transformation of churches into multi-purpose halls. This is worse than what was done by totalitarian atheist regimes, which had transformed these places into theaters, gymnasiums, and stores. It is a very serious phenomenon, because it means, first, that the sense of the church as a place offered to God, for the worship owed him, has been lost; we have consecrated something, and then we take it back in order to do purely human things there. In the second place, we favor in this way the eclipse of the divine presence, because in the church we practice activities proper to a theater or an auditorium, such as speaking, eating, applauding, and other attitudes typical of places of entertainment. When a church becomes a theater where people laugh, applaud, and shout, it then becomes difficult to demand, for the same place, the proper attitudes for worship: listening, recollection, silence, adoration, because the conviction that one is standing in a versatile locale has taken root. That conviction leads to obscuring the principal and characteristic function of a church, which is adoration, and to prohibiting kneeling for prayer, either when the liturgy is being celebrated in the church, or outside the liturgy. But in reality, the church remains a place of presence and prayer, and of silence, even when there is no liturgy being celebrated. [6]

Continue Reading this Article. . .

New English Translation of Msgr. Nicola Bux’s Introduction to the Sacraments

Angelico Press, which has earned a reputation as one of the finest Catholic publishers today for its wide selection of books on traditional Catholic doctrine and worship, has just released two books that will be of great interest to NLM readers: a revised and expanded edition of the (hitherto out of print) classic by Martin Mosebach, The Heresy of Formlessness, and the English translation of a fine “primer” on the sacraments, No Trifling Matter: Taking the Sacraments Seriously Again (Italian original: Con i sacramenti non si scherza) by Msgr. Nicola Bux, a professor of sacramental theology and a close collaborator of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI.

English readers looking for a description of the content and endorsements of Bux and Mosebach will find them at the links above. Here, with the permission of the author and publisher, we reproduce the Foreword by Christopher J. Malloy of the University of Dallas, who blogs at theologicalflint.com.

FOREWORD

Dr. Christopher J. Malloy

An Italian priest and liturgical theologian, Msgr. Nicola Bux, has written a book on the sacraments quite popular in Italy, now available in English translation. This remarkable book is chock full of pithy insights, noble exhortations, and keen criticisms. Its unifying theme, the perennial sacramentality of the Church in the context of contemporary obstacles and difficulties, allows its scope to be quite vast and sprawling. No Trifling Matter is not intended as a textbook. Rather, its sundry edifying observations and notes of wisdom make for good reading in small portions. There is much food for thought here. The anonymous translator offers notes with helpful theological clarifications and background insight on Italian culture.

Fr. Bux presents a thoroughly Catholic view, touching on East and West, the spiritual and the physical, the Ancient and the New, the natural and the supernatural, sin and grace, predestination and free will, Church and world. Among the dominant sub-themes is the sacred and the profane. “Sacred” means holy, dedicated to God. “Profane” has several meanings. It first signifies what lies “before” or “outside” the temple. It also signifies what is natural, not yet consecrated. Finally, it can signify what is crass, tasteless, or even opposed to God. As Bux reminds the reader, what is earthly and ordinary, but not crass, is called to be taken up and ordered to God. The Church is called to consecrate the world to God.

This beautiful vision has been effaced from the Catholic imagination in the wake of an errant theology that obscures the distinction between sacred and profane. Under a semblance of mysticism, some (e.g., Karl Rahner, Vorgrimler, Martos) claim in various ways that the world is already sacred from the beginning. They mock a caricature of the Tradition, as though the Tradition denied that any grace exists outside of church buildings. The Tradition, including official Church doctrine, never made such a ridiculous claim. The Church teaches (a) that there are graces outside of her visible boundaries and action, (b) that such grace objectively leads back to the Catholic Church, (c) that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, and (d) that only those who are invincibly ignorant of this truth are not condemned for not entering the Church (while even these are deprived of many helps). In short, the Tradition has by no means a simpleton’s position.

Having dismissed the Tradition, the revolutionaries substitute errors in its stead. Claiming that grace is already in the world, they hold that the sacraments only express this fact with correct words and gestures. Understandably, some faithful Catholics too quickly critique this notion as reducing sacraments to merely indicative “signs.” The revolutionaries have a ready response: They claim that the grace in the world “inclines” to become sacramental, “inclines” to express itself. In this way, they assert, the sacraments contain grace. They call the sacraments, thus understood, “Real Symbols.”

In fact, the Real Symbol notion falls short of Catholic dogma. The revolutionaries are more straightforward when they describe their notion as a “Copernican revolution” in sacramental thinking. As they say, the Tradition (dogma) holds that sacraments are causes of grace, that sacraments convey grace otherwise not present. They reject this teaching. For them, the grace is already there but is in the sacramental act given the correct linguistic and gestural expression. Further, the revolutionaries have lost the sense of the supernatural and of sin and the need for repentance and sacramental grace to escape eternal damnation. If not many people are unfortunate enough to read this ruinous line of thought, many suffer in parishes because of its influence.

For those looking for a thoughtful antidote, Bux’s book is a fine option. Bux recognizes the importance and necessity of catechesis, but he urges us to appreciate the noble work of the sacraments and not to let explanations dominate rationalistically. With the assistance of words, we should live and contemplate the signs, which point to and convey what is higher and deeper. To appreciate signs, Bux reminds us, is a basic human task. All of being is significant.

Hand-in-hand with the loss of the sacred goes loss of the sense of God, as Bux notes with Ratzinger. Many current celebrations of Mass fail to draw the mind to God. They fail to encourage us to lay aside earthly cares and attend to the heavenly banquet. His transcendent aim obscured, man becomes the center of attention. Although Vatican II did not ask for it, the tabernacle is often banished to the outskirts, making the Blessed Sacrament “homeless.” The liturgy then becomes a field of human entertainment, not entry into the divine work.

In addition to this macroscopic view of things, Bux also hones in on particular, pressing issues. He points out, for instance, that Vatican II did not cast Latin into a dungeon. Sadly, Latin languishes despite having many reasons to be retained. In a globalized world, Latin offers an unexpected promise of unity not yoked to any current political regime. More importantly, Latin is a spiritual treasure of the Church, part of the living Tradition of handing on the faith. A simple return to Latin is not enough, however. Even the Latin of the Ordinary Form of the Mass, Bux notes, mutes expression of such elements of the faith as the existence of the devil, the darkness of sin, etc. The Ordinary Form of baptism retains no exorcisms, only prayers of liberation. This privation is a mark of discontinuity.

Bux also recalls the centrality of sacrifice in the Mass. Although also a banquet at the table of nourishment, the Mass is firstly a sacrifice of the altar, a sacrifice of right worship to God effective as propitiation for sins. We need to retain both aspects. Attention to the Real Presence also makes clear that the Mass is a divine work. The Eucharistic presence of Christ does not evolve gradually through the work of human hands but is achieved instantaneously by the power of Christ in heaven, working through the hierarchical priest on earth. How appropriate to ring the bells at this solemn moment!

In order to be fit to receive the Eucharist, one must be in the state of grace. Among today’s great errors is flight from the Gospel’s exhortation, echoed at the Council, to become holy. Not everyone may receive the Eucharist, for not everyone is in the state of grace. Many people today have left a marriage and attempted to become “remarried,” without having received an official judgment from the Church that the first marriage was from its inception null. Those who have done this and are engaged in sexual relations are in a state of sin and may not receive the Eucharist. They must repent, which requires firm purpose of amendment, and receive absolution in Confession. Only false mercy would attempt to override or reinterpret these life-giving elements of divine law.

Today’s loss of the sense of sin goes hand-in-hand with the false notion that the world is already holy. Common sense tells us this notion is false. If it is holy, why are so many so spiritually sad, so misled, so confused, so distraught? Missionaries, who don’t just think about loving others but do something about it, first exorcise new territories and then they lay their foundations. Similarly, church buildings are solemnly consecrated, set aside solely for divine use. The profane is not the sacred, although what had been profane can be consecrated and brought into the sacred. Alas, Bux cries, nowadays churches are treated as venues for mundane, even shameful events. How can the mind’s eye rise to God when the house of the holy is just another theater?

Perhaps most timely is Bux’s chapter on marriage. He nicely treats the differing theologies of the minister of marriage in East and West. He stresses the centrality of fecundity and the complementarity of male and female in the sacrament. As Bux relates, the homosexual ideology of its essence violates sexual difference, all the while pleading in legal contexts recognition of “difference.” The argument is disingenuous because it (a) abolishes truth by demanding acceptance of error and (b) abolishes the loveliest of differences, male and female. Although respect is due to everyone as persons, human “rights” require reference to human nature and hence to God’s law.

Not least, Bux reflects on the sacramentals. His narration of the organic development that led to building and consecrating churches is splendid. We are once again reminded of the sacred and the profane, of the natural and the supernatural. In reading, I was reminded of T.S. Eliot’s line, “You are here to kneel, where prayer has been valid.” Use of the sacred space for profane events, even if these be tolerable in themselves, is a “very serious phenomenon,” even a “desolation.” Similarly, the cavalier way priests carry on at Mass, with gym shoes and jokes, high fives, calling for applause, etc., represents “not a sacred order, but a profane and secularized disorder.”

This book would make a fine gift for a priest who has an open mind to a call to return to the beauty and truth of Tradition. It might be seen as a bridge, inviting one to contemplate the disorders of today’s liturgical experiences as reason to reconsider the timeless wisdom of the Church. Practicing lay Catholics without theological training will also enjoy it. May it be widely read!

The Angelico page for this book is here; the Amazon.com page is here.