A Catechesis on and Examination of the Use and Construction of Altar Rails in the Novus Ordo Missae

The following article is written by a diocesan priest. The mounting attack on altar rails throughout the Church, renewing the iconoclasm of the 1970s, is a cause of deep concern to every serious Catholic. For this reason it behooves us to understand that even according to the rules that govern the Novus Ordo, there is absolutely no basis for a bishop to oppose the use or the construction of altar rails in churches. – Dr. Kwasniewski

There are many elements in our Catholic faith that can easily be thought of as superfluous due to their lack of effecting certain actions ­– which does not make them invalid or illicit. However, this minimalistic approach is the opposite of what we are as Catholics. We do not love certain elements because we think they make us holier in and of themselves. Rather, we love them because they express to us the reality of Him who is holy. In loving these elements, we do not subject ourselves to a form of separation from sincere affection. On the contrary, our innermost beings are drawn into a deep charity that cannot be described. In other words, we encounter the living God. Devotion is not fanaticism. Devotion is a form of expressing the soul’s inner longing for union with the Divine. The spiritual becoming tangible.

This document has three set purposes. The first is to inform the reader about the historical, theological, and liturgical uses regarding the altar rails. The second is to instill in the reader a richer understanding of the nature of this tradition, and to deepen his love for such things. The third is to examine the legality of liturgical furnishings that belong to this category, the category of the “superfluous” or “not necessary”, and answer the question of whether they may be used, and whether they may be banned. By the end of this document, the reader will understand that altar rails have a basis in the historical and theological dimensions of the Mass, and may be utilized and even promoted, in light of recent legislation.

1. Historical Basis

Our best early resources regarding details in the liturgy come from the fourth century. It was after the Edict of Milan in 313 and the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 that the early Christian witnesses address the liturgy that had emerged into the public eye. Along with this, we still have much evidence of the architecture of the early Christian Church.

A universal constant from this period through the present day was a barrier between the sanctuary and the people. The theological significance of this barrier is to distinguish the Holy of Holies from the inner court, as was done in the tabernacle, and later, the Temple. Our forefathers saw the Mass as the re-presentation of Calvary, and Calvary as the fulfillment of Temple worship. Hence, elements of vesture and architecture, such as the barrier, carried over from our Jewish forbears.

In the East, this took the form of the iconostasis, a barrier at the entrance of the sanctuary. Only clerics and acolytes are permitted to pass through the iconostasis. The priest emerges at Communion to give communion to the faithful there present.

In the West, this initially took the form of a sectioned-off wall, known as a balustrade, which would veil the actions in the sanctuary from the congregation. As time progressed, this barrier would eventually become the rood screen, which was far more common in the West. This screen, while still separating the nave from the sanctuary, served as a mystical meeting point between God’s dwelling place, the new Sancta Sanctorum, and the outer holy place, where God’s elect dwelt. The faithful approached and received the Body of Christ at the roodscreen.

In the medieval era, as Eucharistic theology developed, so did Eucharistic piety. Throughout the West, essentially from the time of the Cluniac Reforms and through the thirteenth century, canon law moved to only allowing the priest, with consecrated hands, to handle the Sacred Species, except by indult. At the same time, already by the nineth century, a combination of popular piety and ecclesiastical legislation brought about the standardization of reception of Holy Communion kneeling on the tongue.

The more modern architecture of the altar rail come into vogue during the Counter-Reformation. To combat Protestant accusations of mystification, artisans made the sanctuary more visible by putting up a rail rather than a rood screen. This became the standard in Christendom for the next 400 years. The rail stood as a culmination of centuries of theological and liturgical development. It still separated the sanctuary from the nave, and allowed a simple and traditional method of distribution of Holy Communion, while also fostering Eucharistic piety and active participation, since the faithful in said churches were able more clearly to observe the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Figure 1: The Ballustrade of S. Maria in Cosmedin, Rome
(source: Liturgical Arts Journal)

Figure 2: The layout of the Temple
(source: Wikimedia Commons)

2. The GIRM and Altar Rails

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, which governs all things pertaining to the Novus Ordo Mass, explicitly allows for the erection of the altar rail. Following the perennial tradition of the Church, paragraph 295 states that the sanctuary “should be marked off from the body of the church either by its being somewhat elevated or by a particular structure and ornamentation.” In practice, this “or” is inclusive, and sanctuaries are often constructed with a fixed elevation and some structure and ornamentation.

Reading this in light of the tradition, we can only interpret this “structure” as the altar rail. In ecclesial legislation, grants are to be applied broadly in the law, and lower authorities than the Universal Law cannot restrict a grant (Can. 36 §1.). Since it is permitted in the General Instruction, it cannot be forbidden that priests choose to mark their sanctuaries by the use of the rail.

The GIRM also specifies that in the arrangement of the Church there should be easy access when it comes to the reception of Holy Communion. It instructs us as follows: “moreover, benches or seating should be so arranged, especially in newly built churches, that the faithful can easily take up the bodily postures required for the different parts of the celebration and can have easy access for the reception of Holy Communion” (GIRM #311).

Although there is no explicit mention on the usage of the rails themselves in these latter norms, the altar rail is still a traditional means by which these norms may be fulfilled. They provide a literal “easy access” to the Sacrament, whether one is standing or kneeling to receive Communion.

Finally, in practical terms, distribution of Holy Communion via this “easy access” at altar rails only speeds up the distribution of Communion. When the congregation lines up at the rails, the distributor may go from person to person without much loss of time in between people. With this in mind, the more common form of distribution seems to provide less “easy access” for the faithful to receive Communion. Many, especially old people, struggle to very quickly kneel to receive without delaying the rest of the line. It is within their right to receive in this manner. Yet, “easy access” is oftentimes not given at a standard parish for the faithful to receive in this way.

In sum, altar rails fulfills the requirements of the GIRM in a traditional and arguably fuller way that is not in contradiction to the law of the Church. It is an erroneous opinion that they are harmful, or even in contradiction to the law of the Church.

3. Altar Rails in Light of Redemptionis Sacramentum

At this point, the rubrics have not given any explicit statement as to whether the altar rails may be utilized. They have also not specified whether reception at the altar rail is something altogether prohibited, or whether it can be prohibited by the bishop.

This brings us to Redemptionis Sacramentum, written by Cardinal Arinze of the CDW (now known as the DDW) in 2004, during the reign of St John Paul II, written in the wake of the 2003 encyclical titled Ecclesia de Eucharistia, which called for instruction on liturgical norms.

In paragraph 4 of RS, the CDW promptly states one of the greatest reasons for issuing said instruction:

In this regard it is not possible to be silent about… abuses, even quite grave ones, against the nature of the Liturgy and the Sacraments as well as the tradition and the authority of the Church, which in our day not infrequently plague liturgical celebrations in one ecclesial environment or another. In some places the perpetration of liturgical abuses has become almost habitual, a fact which obviously cannot be allowed and must cease” (RS, 4).

The point in the promulgation of this document, as stated above is to root out liturgical abuses from the preceding decades. It further seeks to restore liturgical celebrations to the “tradition and authority” of the Church, as opposed to the innovations which had been introduced since the promulgation of the New Mass in 1969, often by priest celebrants.

Within the same instruction the CDW includes a section that is directed towards bishops. This section, and the following, are crucial, because the whole document is focused on proper liturgical norms being implemented, keeping in mind the Church’s orthopraxical tradition. In paragraph 19, the CDW states, “The diocesan bishop, the first steward of the mysteries of God in the particular Church entrusted to him, is the moderator, promoter and guardian of her whole liturgical life” (RS, 19). The bishop is the protector of the diocese’s liturgical life.

Moving forward, the CDW states:

It pertains to the diocesan bishop, then, ‘within the limits of his competence, to set forth liturgical norms in his diocese, by which all are bound.’ Still, the bishop must take care not to allow the removal of that liberty foreseen by the norms of the liturgical books so that the celebration may be adapted in an intelligent manner to the Church building, or to the group of the faithful who are present, or to particular pastoral circumstances in such a way that the universal sacred rite is truly accommodated to human understanding. The bishop governs the particular Church entrusted to him, and it is his task to regulate, to direct, to encourage, and sometimes also to reprove; this is a sacred task that he has received through episcopal ordination, which he fulfills in order to build up his flock in truth and holiness (RS, 21-22).

It is within the rights of the bishop to create liturgical norms for his diocese. These liturgical norms are for the accomplishment of the same task laid out in Redemptionis Sacramentum itself, that is, to stop liturgical abuses and to educate. Many abuses occur out of “ignorance, in that they involve a rejection of those elements whose deeper meaning is not understood and whose antiquity is not recognized” (RS, 9).

Yet, the above quotation puts a limit on the bishop’s authority, for “the bishop must take care not to allow the removal of that liberty foreseen by the norms of the liturgical books so that the celebration may be adapted in an intelligent manner to the Church building, or to the group of the faithful who are present, or to particular pastoral circumstances.” Thus, the bishop cannot encroach in his liturgical norms upon certain liberties given to the laity and priests alike.

Obviously, this could be taken in an anarchical way that completely contradicts the spirit of the document, by which one claims that everything is an “adaptation… to a particular pastoral” circumstance. In terms, then, of authentic interpretation, what is this liberty “foreseen by the norms of the liturgical books”?

On the most fundamental level, it is that which is printed within the Missal and the GIRM that gives a priest or a member of the lay faithful an option. For example, the priest is given the option to announce the Sign of Peace (Missale Romanum, 128). The lay faithful are given the option to receive Communion kneeling or standing; on the hand (unless there is “a risk of profanation”) or on the tongue (RS, 90). Hence, “it is not licit to deny Holy Communion to any of Christ’s faithful solely on the grounds… that the person wishes to receive the Eucharist kneeling or standing” (RS, 91). These options, which are printed in the rubrics, are liberties that the bishop cannot remove.

But the document does not stop here. It also allows “that the celebration may be adapted in an intelligent manner to the Church building, or to the group of the faithful who are present, or to particular pastoral circumstances in such a way that the universal sacred rite is truly accommodated to human understanding.” Here, we must understand these rubrics within the mindset of its legislator. Again, the point in this clause is not to allow anarchy within the liturgy—far from it! Rather, the mind of the legislator points solely to the traditional practices within the liturgy. This is where altar rails come back into the discussion.

Many church buildings, especially those which have been built in a traditional manner, have retained, restored, or constructed, an altar rail. Is this outside of the purview of the Novus Ordo or Redemptionis Sacramentum? Absolutely not. RS was written for the restoration of tradition within the Sacred Liturgy. The CDW notes, quite explicitly that “the structures and forms of the sacred celebrations according to each of the Rites of both East and West are in harmony with the practice of the universal Church also as regards practices received universally from apostolic and unbroken tradition, which it is the Church’s task to transmit faithfully and carefully to future generations” (RS, 9).

Notably, the CDW is not referring to the perennial Tradition, in terms of doctrine, but tradition, in terms of liturgical customs. RS mentions “tradition” 23 times throughout the whole document. The abuses addressed in RS are against, “against the nature of the Liturgy and the Sacraments as well as the tradition and the authority of the Church” (RS, 4).

With this in mind, reception of Holy Communion at the altar rail, even in the Novus Ordo, is something hardly spoken of in the rubrics, and thus afforded liberty. It is an appropriate adaptation to the liturgy, with the interior of the church in mind. It is an appropriate adaptation to the lay faithful who desire to receive Communion at the rail. Thus, it is not within the purview of the bishop to ban this or any other traditional practice, not explicitly forbidden in the rubrics. The Church’s judgment in these matters has always been on the side of upholding the tradition. The use of the altar rail is a laudable expression of that tradition.

Conclusion

Considering the history, theology, and instructions regarding altar rails, we can now clearly state that these liturgical furnishings are not only permitted, but also a laudatory and traditional enhancement to the sanctuary. They are a gate to the “altar of God, to God my exceeding joy” (Ps. 42). Truly, from the author’s experience, the faithful view the altar rail as an altar for their own sacrifice of their lives, and a place where heaven and Earth meet. In fine, the view, not only of the faithful and clergy, but more importantly of Holy Mother Church, is reiterated by Pope Benedict XVI, “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.”

Communion and Coronavirus: Pertinent Law for the Ordinary Form [UPDATED]

A reader wrote to me:

I saw your article about how Holy Communion cannot be given in the hand at the Extraordinary Form. However, in a church I attend for daily Ordinary Form Mass, an announcement has just been posted that the pastor requires us to receive now in the hand because of the coronavirus. My understanding is that we can receive in the hand by permission but reception on the tongue cannot be taken away, though searching for a document stating as much has been difficult. Can you point me in the right direction?

Here are four pertinent texts:

Letter of April 3, 1985, from the Congregation for Divine Worship to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops [Prot. 720/85]:

The Holy See, since 1969, while maintaining the traditional manner of distributing communion, has granted to those Episcopal Conferences that have requested it, the faculty of distributing communion by placing the host in the hands of the faithful…  The faithful are not to be obliged to adopt the practice of communion in the hand. Each one is free to communicate in one way or the other.

Response by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Notitiae (April 1999):

Query: Whether in dioceses where it is allowed to distribute Communion in the hands of the faithful, a priest or extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion may restrict communicants to receive Communion only in their hands, not on the tongue.
Response: Certainly it is clear from the very documents of the Holy See that in dioceses where the Eucharistic bread is put in the hands of the faithful, the right to receive the Eucharistic bread on the tongue still remains intact to the faithful. Therefore, those who restrict communicants to receive Holy Communion only on in the hands are acting against the norms, as are those who refuse to Christ’s faithful [the right] to receive Communion in the hand in dioceses that enjoy this indult.

General Instruction of the Roman Missal. Issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, November 12, 2002; US edition 2011, n. 161:

If Communion is given only under the species of bread, the Priest raises the host slightly and shows it to each, saying, The Body of Christ. The communicant replies, Amen, and receives the Sacrament either on the tongue or, where this is allowed, in the hand, the choice lying with the communicant.

Redemptionis Sacramentum—Instruction On Certain Matters to be Observed or to be Avoided Regarding the Most Holy Eucharist, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, March 25, 2004, art. 92:

Although each of the faithful always has the right to receive Holy Communion on the tongue, at his choice, if any communicant should wish to receive the Sacrament in the hand, in areas where the Bishops’ Conference with the recognitio of the Apostolic See has given permission, the sacred host is to be administered to him or her. 

(Again, to avoid all possible confusion, all of the above legislation applies only to the Ordinary Form or Novus Ordo Missae.)

I will repeat what one canon lawyer wrote to me on February 29:

From my perspective, a bishop cannot require anyone to receive in the hand. Even in the Ordinary Form, the prescription is communion on the tongue, with the right to approach and receive in the hand. The norm is the norm, and it is based on the right of the faithful to choose how to worship God at a moment in the Mass that is deeply personal and not communal in nature. My opinion is based on the repeated jurisprudence from the Holy See upholding the rights of a Catholic to receive communion on the tongue while kneeling during an OF Mass, even if his or her bishop has issued a particular law to the contrary. Such laws are considered suggestive in nature and in no way binding.

If this is true for a bishop’s law, a fortiori it is true of a pastor of a parish. A layman may not be denied the Blessed Sacrament unless he is a notorious public sinner. A priest who, on his own initiative, told the people they must receive in the hand would be violating the law and leading the people into the violation of it.

A second canon lawyer agreed:

In a medical emergency the bishop has a right to take reasonable steps to protect the health of parishioners. That being said, the faithful should do what they want and feel no obligation to receive Holy Communion in the hand. They cannot be required to do that in either the OF or (theoretically) the EF in emergency circumstances.

On a practical note, many have pointed out that germs are spread as easily by frequent hand contact as by placing the host in the mouth (which, if the priest knows what he’s doing, should not involve any transfer of saliva), as Bishop Athanasius Schneider has recently explained.

UPDATE:

A kindly reader send me the following letter from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, dated 24 July 2009, written at the time of an earlier flu outbreak. This letter confirms all of the foregoing.

Why We Should Retain or Reintroduce the Communion Plate (“Chin Paten”)

At a time in my life when I was still attending daily Novus Ordo Masses, there was a particular year in which, due to what strange epidemic of butterfingers I could not say, I witnessed hosts falling to the ground several times. It happened with three different priests. Apart from further cementing my conviction that nothing dumber could ever have been imagined than switching from the safe, efficient, and reverent method of communicating the faithful on the tongue as they kneel along the altar rail to the unsteady, convoluted, and casual method of queuing up and sticking out hands or tongue at varied heights in relation to the distributor, these episodes prompted me to do a bit of research about what ever happened to the paten or “communion plate” held by an altar server in order to catch hosts or fragments.

The full story of “chin patens” or communion plates turned out to be considerably more interesting than I had realized: Monsignor Charles Pope relates it here. Although a recent (19th-century) development, they make a great deal of sense. After all, even if the “houseling cloth” was the traditional method and still possesses an aesthetic and devotional appeal of its own, it wouldn’t really work very well at catching anything unless it were suspended carefully under each communicant — as one sees in Byzantine practice, or in some First Communion services in the Roman rite (see photograph below). So the invention of the “chin paten” was a brilliant idea and deserved its universal acceptance around the Catholic world. We could consider it a classic example of organic development: a real need is met by an appropriate solution that harmoniously slides into what is already there.

We can all guess what happened to them in the 1960s: in the rush to modernize, the chin paten, together with maniples, birettas, amices, houseling cloths, altar rails, and a hundred other standard-issue features of a Catholic church, would have seemed fussy extras, sacristy clutter, scrupulous remnants interfering with the businesslike transaction and the clean lines of the new aesthetic, where less was thought to be more — more “authentic” and more “spiritual.”

Nevertheless, it does not take long experience to see that when a chin paten is used, fragments of the host do fall on its surface sometimes, and that it does catch falling hosts. [1] That, in and of itself, should be more than enough to force an earnest reconsideration of the importance of retaining or reintroducing chin patens during communion time.

What surprised me is that this is also the mens ecclesiae, as expressed most recently in 2004, in the Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which states:

The Communion-plate for the Communion of the faithful ought to be retained, so as to avoid the danger of the sacred host or some fragment of it falling. (Patina pro Communione fidelium oportet retineatur, ad vitandum periculum ut hostia sacra vel quoddam eius fragmentum cadat.)

The Instruction at this point cites n. 118 of the General Instruction, which lists all the things that should be provided on the credence table, including: “the Communion-plate [patina] for the Communion of the faithful.” It is true that a close reading of the GIRM would suggest that this paten is mandatory only when intinction is utilized (see n. 287), but nevertheless it is a common sense practice allowed for by the GIRM and certainly commendable for all sorts of reasons.

Houseling cloth and paten in use (a first communion in Germany) 

One reason has not yet been mentioned: quite apart from its utility, the chin paten reminds the faithful of the mystery of the One who is present to us under the sacramental species of bread. He is the Lord of glory, hidden under the humble veil of food, and we must approach It and handle It with utmost reverence. The paten is a simple and subtle way of underlining that communion is no mere symbolic token of communal belonging but a genuine participation in the Redeemer’s divine flesh. When we recover little signs like this — and in ideal circumstances, we would be restoring the altar rail, too, and the houseling cloth — we do our part in reversing the outrageously bad statistics about the ignorance of and lack of faith in transubstantiation that characterizes American Catholics and probably Catholics in many other parts of the world as well.

Another reason to use the chin paten is that it subtly encourages the faithful to receive on the tongue, since the paten seems to have its use most properly in that configuration. The signal is transmitted that something special is occurring in reception on the tongue that reception on the hand rules out. Psychologically, this could come across as: “The person in line ahead of me is treated more specially because the priest and the server cooperate when giving him communion. Maybe I should do that, too. It seems more appropriate somehow.” I grant that Boomers are not likely to reason this way, but others with less baggage might.

Although communion plates with no handle are sometimes used, plates with long handles tend to be much more convenient for altar servers. If a particular place is following the common though inefficient and impersonal “queuing up” model, the server should stand to one side of the priest and hold the paten under the chin of any communicant who receives on the tongue. It is harder to say what should be done with those who receive in the hands, apart from saying that they just shouldn’t, period. But that topic has been taken up in many other NLM articles, and is not the main point here.

For those who take the motto of “brick by brick” seriously, reintroducing the communion plate would be a simple and affordable brick that could be set into its place readily enough.


NOTE
[1] No method is perfect, since a host hard enough can bounce off of a paten, as I saw happen with the first generation low-gluten hosts, which tended to be hard rather than soft. Such mishaps can, in any case, be avoided as long as the paten remains close to the communicant's chin, so that there is not a long distance through which a host can fall.

Visit www.peterkwasniewski.com for articles, sacred music, and classics reprinted by Os Justi Press (e.g., Benson, Scheeben, Parsch, Guardini, Chaignon, Leen).

Dom Mark Kirby on the Link Between Sacrilege and Bad Liturgical Customs

NLM readers undoubtedly know by now of the atrocious acts of sacrilege committed against the Most Blessed Sacrament in Pamplona, Spain. This nauseating act of contempt for the most sacred of all sacred things speaks of the decline of the Church in Europe and, broadly speaking, of civilized life more poignantly than anything else could do. There are, thanks be to God, thousands who have been making reparation, as our Lord, never to be defeated and never to be surpassed, draws forth spiritual good from the worst of the devil's attacks. The devil will never win -- but until the end of time, he will never stop trying to mar the good work of God, until he is bound hand and foot and shut up forever.

In connection with this incident, I was struck by an article posted by Dom Mark Kirby, O.S.B., of Silverstream Priory, where he ponders the connection between novel liturgical customs and the kinds of irreverence they make possible today on a scale that beggars the imagination. I shall quote here most of the article, but encourage the readers to go to Vultus Christi for the whole piece (and for other posts -- it is always a most enlightening and edifying blog).

A priest friend said to me this morning that bishops the world over need to consider a moratorium on Holy Communion in the hand. Perhaps for the Year of Mercy? Are we to show no mercy to the One who is present among us under the appearances of a thing so fragile as the Host? Do we not recognize in the Sacred Host God become, for love of us, vulnerable, poor, silent, and defenseless? Do we not see that the Sacred Host is the ultimate expression of what Saint Paul (see Philippians 2:7) calls the kenosis of the Son of God, that is His utter self-emptying?
       The Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum promulgated eleven years ago by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments 25 March 2004, seems, in most places, to have had little or no effect. One wonders if the clergy were at all given the opportunity to come together to study the document and, with one mind, plan its implementation. Among other things, in article 92, the Instruction says clearly: “If there is a risk of profanation, then Holy Communion should not be given in the hand to the faithful”. Many times I have had Sacred Hosts, sometimes bearing the imprint of shoes after having been trampled, brought to me by aggrieved layfolk who picked them up from the floor of churches. I think it only reasonable to conclude that there is, in fact, widespread risk of profanation. Consequently, article 92 of Redemptionis Sacramentum needs to be invoked and implemented. Not to do so would be, I think, more than a mere oversight.
       What has so inured the clergy and laity to the extreme abasement of Jesus Christ in the Sacred Host that sacrileges and profanations meet with no more than a passing measured expression of regret? Have we no  mercy for the defenceless Christ? No tears for God? No voice to cry aloud when the Body of God is defiled?  One forgets, I think, that the culture of death denounced by Saint John Paul II is, in fact, an attack on the human body. Every attack on the human body and every profanation of the human body is, in the final analysis, an attack on the Body of Christ. Conversely, every attack on the Eucharistic Body of Christ and every profanation of that Sacred Body attacks and profanes the human body. “Amen, I say to you, as long as you did it to the body of one of these my least brethren, you did it to my Body; and as long as you did it to my Body, you did it to the body of one of these my least brethren” (cf. Matthew 25:39). [...]
       A society that admits the practice of abortion — dismembering the body of a child — will, ineluctably, feel indifferent towards sins against the Eucharistic Body of Christ, the hóstia pura, hóstia sancta, hóstia immaculáta – the pure Victim, the holy Victim, the spotless Victim. By the same token, irreverence towards the Eucharistic Body of Christ opens the door to every manner of sin against the human body: abortion, pornography, sexual perversion, and every manner of violence and abuse. Everything that affects the body has repercussions upon The Body; and everything that affects The Body has repercussions upon the body.
       “The stench of putrefaction”, says the old Italian proverb, “begins from the head of the fish”. I would argue that every loss of reverence at the altar leads to a loss of reverence in the sanctuary; that every loss of reverence in the sanctuary leads to a loss of reverence in the body of the church; that every loss of reverence in the body of the church leads to a loss of reverence in the marketplace, schools, hospitals, and theatres; that every loss of reverence in the marketplace, schools, hospitals, and theatres leads to a loss of reverence in the home; and that every loss of reverence in the home leads to a loss of reverence in the marriage bed.

(Read the whole article here.)

What Do “the People in the Pews” Deserve?: On the Right of the Faithful to Integrally Catholic Worship

In 2004, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments published the Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum, “On certain matters to be observed or to be avoided regarding the Most Holy Eucharist.” It makes for melancholy reading, given that this Instruction, like so many other damage-control documents, was summarily ignored by the liturgical establishment and most diocesan chanceries. In 2005 a friend of mine called her diocese one day to complain about an outrageous liturgical abuse and mentioned that Redemptionis Sacramentum had specifically declared it outlawed. The person on the other end, an officer of the chancery, said she’d never heard of it, but she would ask around to see if they had a copy. Some time later she came back and said: “No, no one here has heard of that document. Maybe you could send us a letter with your question?”

But I digress. Here is one of my favorite passages from Redemptionis Sacramentum:

Arbitrary actions [in the liturgy] are not conducive to true renewal, but are detrimental to the right of Christ’s faithful to a liturgical celebration that is an expression of the Church’s life in accordance with her tradition and discipline. … It is the right of all of Christ’s faithful that the liturgy, and in particular the celebration of Holy Mass, should truly be as the Church wishes, according to her stipulations as prescribed in the liturgical books and in the other laws and norms. Likewise, the Catholic people have the right that the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass should be celebrated for them in an integral manner, according to the entire doctrine of the Church’s Magisterium. Finally, it is the Catholic community’s right that the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist should be carried out for it in such a manner that it truly stands out as a sacrament of unity, to the exclusion of all blemishes and actions that might engender divisions and factions in the Church. (nn. 11-12) 

The document refers several times to the Church’s “patrimony” and “heritage,” which are to be preserved. I was thinking of all this recently in connection with a poignant quotation from an article by David Warren:

Through the centuries, and even to the present day, the faith of the Church has been communicated by music, as much as by words; the very Word, through the Church, embodied in music. … The Mass in its nature is sung, chanted; and the innumerable musical settings of the Mass are intrinsic to its meaning, to its universality, to the dimensionality: it is not “just words.” … I am convinced that the recovery of the musical traditions, within Holy Church, can do more to evangelize than any quarrelling with the world. For what we must do is not argue, but proclaim; and music in its nature does not argue. It proclaims.[1]

The traditional sacred music of the Church is part, and not a small part, of that patrimony and heritage that simply ARE Catholic and MAKE US more thoroughly Catholic when we embrace them for the God-given gifts they are. Redemptionis Sacramentum lays it out quite clearly: Catholics have a right to the sacred music of the Church as defined by the Magisterium of the Church, and pastors have a duty to provide it for our spiritual benefit.[2] Not to provide it would constitute a kind of liturgical abuse; not to seek it would amount to a form of acedia or spiritual laziness.[3] To love it would be the humility of the disciple; to be offended by it, the pride of autonomy, a non serviam. To sing it with gratitude would be one way of proclaiming the Good News to a world enveloped in warped or bad news.

Still, we all know that there are people who, for reasons great and small, despise sacred music and all sorts of other things that fall into the category of “patrimony” or “heritage.” What do we say about them? Should we make room for them and their latest version of worship, accommodate their views, cater to their tastes? Should there be a “Mass slot” for their sentiments and shenanigans?

This is where some tough love is in order, if we actually wish to be charitable. It can happen that people are looking for the wrong thing — and it’s not the Church’s job to give them the wrong thing, but to show them what is better. To Americans this sounds elitist, but it’s always been the way: to show a higher path, to live it as well as we can, and to beg the Lord to move people to follow. We do a disservice to evangelization when we entice people into the Church for the wrong reasons or with means that are non-catholic or even anti-catholic.[4] By consistently offering the divine liturgy and its sacred music in their better (i.e., more traditional) forms, and doing so without cultural apologies or the security valve of postmodern pluralism, we honor the great holiness of the inherited liturgy and we give good service to evangelization, which must be founded on the fact of having received something worthwhile to hand on.

Returning to the pastoral question, to what extent should we “make room” for that which is less good, less worthy of the liturgy (such as poor quality music), in order to avoid offense or exclusion? It seems to me obvious that one has to take an incremental approach wherever there has been, for 50 years or more, a smorgasbord or secularized approach. One shouldn’t expect to change everything overnight or attempt to do so, because one will lose not only those who are ill-disposed to any change, but also those who might come around given a little time and some experience of the beautiful. To avoid meandering and losing momentum, however, one must always preserve a single sovereign goal: feeding the faithful with the best of our Catholic tradition, which is what the people in the pews need and deserve, and what the clergy owe them. It is an act of love and respect to share our riches and not to hide them under a bushel basket; it is an act of obedience to submit to the given liturgical forms (e.g., the use of the Propers of the Mass, Gregorian chant, Latin, and the other things Vatican II called for) rather than randomizing or customizing them.

The liturgy is given to us as something objective, formal, public, and traditional — and we have terribly lost sight of that in the past fifty years, as we rushed to make it subjectively appealing, informal so as not to scare away the half-hearted, privatized in accordance with our social sectors, and full of novelties to win over the progressive, the bored, or the curious. It has all been a resounding failure, leaving us divided, scattered, and bleeding to death. We have learned, or we should have learned by now, that trying to figure out what “modern man” needs and then custom-fitting everything to that is certainly not going to work. What modern man needs is what man, as such, has always needed and will always need: worship in spirit and in truth, aided by the sensible elements of the liturgy, in continuity with apostolic tradition. Anything less than that leaves us prisoners to ourselves and our age; anything less is a form of abuse, open or subtle. Good liturgy is demanding because anything fine, noble, great, and transcendent is demanding.

Besides that, the liturgy cannot be expected to perform every job. We need social events, social outreach, catechesis, apologetics — and, most basic of all, the witness of good Christian lives. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in particular, is a very specific thing in the life of the Church, and it was never intended to be all things to all people. It breaks under that kind of impossible weight. The Mass will come to life again, and we will come to life through it, if we can just let it be itself — if we let the Mass be simply and totally the sacrifice of Calvary, nothing else, with all that is proper to it, and nothing that is foreign to it. It cannot be the youth rally, the senior club, the show of Padre Centro d’Attenzione, the Buddhist-Bauhaus zone of emptiness, or the Billy Graham Bible Study. Give it back its music, its ritual fabric, its tapestry of solemn, sung, and silent prayer handed down in hallowed forms, its gaze riveted on the bloody Tree of Paradise, and it will become once again the hidden font of torrents of grace.

Meanwhile, we poor servants of the mystery should not reproach ourselves about offering the liturgy as beautifully and worthily and reverently as we can, even if, by doing so, we lose some of our congregation. When Jesus preached the doctrine of feasting on His Eucharistic flesh and blood, He lost some disciples, too — or rather He allowed them to go away. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has ever been and will ever be a scandal to certain individuals, and this “scandal of the particular” includes all of its particularities: the fixed rites, the content of the prayers, the hieratic garments and gestures, the visible hierarchy of male ministries, the traditional music that is part and parcel of the liturgy, the ascetical demands placed on the faithful by the rites or their surrounding laws. These and all such things are or can become offensive to the fallen human mind with its resistance to the obedience of faith and the discipline of mysteries. What we must be thinking, instead, is that by God’s grace, which we must always implore, the human mind can be opened to faith and mystery, and once open, can be filled with holiness and grow into connaturality with the good, the true, and the beautiful.

The measure of our love for our neighbor is how willing we are to share with him what is best — not the mediocre, the bland, the banal, the has-been, the latest fad, or the good enough, but the best. The measure of a pastor’s love will be how eagerly he takes pains to learn what is truly best, to introduce and foster it in his community, and to make it prevail over false progress, grim habit, and tired indifference. This is no time for likes and dislikes; it is a time for love and hatred — love of the sinner and his genuine good, hatred of sin and all obstacles to transformation in Christ.


NOTES

[1] David Warren, "Oh Had I Jubal's Lyre."

[2] As the hypothetical bishop in last week's "A Blueprint for Parish Musical Reform" noted, Redemptionis Sacramentum explicitly states: “It is the right of the community of Christ’s faithful that especially in the Sunday celebration there should customarily be true and suitable sacred music” (n. 57).

[3] On this matter of acedia, see Mark Nowakowski's review of an exceptionally fine book that has recently appeared on the subject.

[4] Not that our efforts in recent decades have been especially successful in attracting or retaining members.