A Reader Laments the Lack of Attention to “Externals” in the Liturgy

A regular NLM reader sent in this letter some weeks ago; it is reproduced below with the author’s permission.

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Men being ordained to the Sacred Priesthood in the traditional Roman Rite (2016)

I enjoyed your post on “The Logic of Incarnation and the Temptation of Disincarnation.” I am so weary of the snide remarks and condescending attitudes characteristic of those who dismiss the Traditional Latin Mass and traditional Roman devotions as a nostalgic preoccupation with externals. As if these things existed in a vacuum or were alien to the heritage of the universal Church! As if they were not the bread and butter of countless saints, still as powerful today in their meaning and impact as they ever were!

I would propose a scriptural sign that God Himself prizes “the externals.” If we re-read the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, etc., we discover a stunning amount of exacting detail that the Lord Himself insisted upon, concerning the specifications of the construction and adornment of His own ark and even the details of vesture and behavior of His priests. The best woods, precious metals, precious stones, and finest fabrics were specified by name. Burlap, ceramic, clay, and sand, incidentally, were not. Those books of the Old Testament are full of accounts of God specifying clearly who was to do which job and exactly how — down to which fingers to use for blessings (I think we could safely call that an early instance of rubrics). God was specific about how, in the externals, He wished to be worshipped, not because He’s an arch-snob but because He knew (as the architect of the human species) that fragrant cedars and jewels and gold filigree would inspire the human heart to higher thoughts of the Fountain of Pure Love than would bare wood and asymmetrical cement.

While there is room for some organic evolution in the minutiae of liturgy as the millennia progress, and while Christianity brings with it a certain artistic freedom as it moves through cultures, how could we ever be justified in the too-frequent modern enshrinement of ugliness and banality in construction, vesture, ritual, music, self-styled liturgical amendments (to “make” the liturgy “more relevant”), and general approach to God, simply because a few measly thousand years have passed? Has the immutable God evolved or devolved? Or rather, have we lost our way?

Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI reminded us that the first Mass, which Our Lord offered on the eve of His Passion, was replete with ritual and formality, stemming from the detailed worship of the Jews. The Mass of the Last Supper would have lasted several hours. Jesus did not despise or scorn such ritual; why should we? Nor was He in any hurry, despite the immense weight of sorrow resting on His sacred shoulders, and His divine knowledge that the gears of His own demise were cranking away. Why should we be in a hurry and consider it too much to kneel for a long while in God’s presence, or to pray in silence, or to sing the chants and listen to them?

I see (and lament) the fruit of the shallow theology that spawns a casual or perfunctory worship in many of the Catholic churches I have visited. It is revealed in the amount of respect shown the Real Presence by the congregants therein — both during Mass and outside of it. Does the cursory head bob truly equal a genuflection? Would any modern day human sovereign recognize one as equivalent to the other? Which, if they could choose, would they prefer for themselves as a sign of allegiance and fidelity?

Does the fact that many lay folk go right up to the Tabernacle and help themselves to its august Occupant bespeak a proper respect for Him? When they dare to handle the Body of Our Lord at Communion time, does it show deep respect for the Lord’s establishment of the priesthood itself and His sacrament of Holy Orders, in which the priests’ hands have been consecrated and anointed unto the specific purpose of handling the precious Body and Blood of the Creator of the world? Have we no humility to accept our status as fledglings that need to be fed by hand in the mouth? Have we forgotten that God struck down dead one Uzzah in the Old Testament (2 Sam. 6:6-7) when he presumed with seemingly good intention to lay his hand upon the exterior of the ark of the covenant to steady it (let alone its contents!)? Is this not the same God? While we know that Jesus taught us to pray to God as our Father, “Abba,” and while we find our salvation in communion with His flesh and blood, Jesus did not nullify all the previously known (Old Testament) attributes of His Father. “I have not come to destroy but to fulfill. . . .”

I heard a story recently that sent a chill down my spine. Apparently a Moslem had been inside a Catholic church (I'm not sure why), and afterwards, he was talking with someone about what he had experienced. When this person said to him that Catholics believe that the Eucharist is really the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ, he replied: "No, they certainly don't believe that, because they would behave in a totally different way if they actually believed it. They would get down on their faces in homage to the Almighty. But they acted as if nothing special were there."

I think what is missing from the current age is the HOLY FEAR and its concomitant respectful behavior that are born of the realization of just WHO is enthroned — albeit in humble estate — in that little box in the center of the church that was once known and revered as the Holy of Holies. It bespeaks a pitiable blindness to the invisible realities, the angelic spirits, who are nevertheless present and attendant upon the King of Kings. Once upon a time, the Church was convinced that the Lord should be given royal treatment and worship. Thankfully these practices are still retained in the Church’s treasury of the Traditional Latin Mass.

Seeking the Right Relationship Between Internal and External

My colleague Dr. Jeremy Holmes, professor of theology at Wyoming Catholic College, has written a response to my article from last week. We are happy to publish it here.

Tissot, Jesus and the Pharisees

Seeking the Right Relationship Between Internal and External

Guest Article by Dr. Jeremy R. Holmes

In his article “The Logic of Incarnation and the Temptation of Disincarnation,” Peter Kwasniewski argues that relativizing or marginalizing the traditional externals of the Catholic Faith has become a prevalent error of our age — one that goes to the heart of our religion, which, being founded upon the mystery of the Incarnate Word, is sacramental, liturgical, and Eucharistic in its very essence, expressed in the historical-cultural unfolding of apostolic tradition. He expresses concern that being dismissive of externals results in a kind of incoherent pluralism and relativism.

While I am sympathetic to his thesis, I would like to offer some thoughts on why this distrust (as it were) of externals arises in the first place, where it slips into error, and how we might think sympathetically about the concerns on both sides. In this way, I believe we can see, at least in a general way, what a proper relationship between and harmony of the outward and inward aspects of Catholicism would look like.

Someone needs reminding “not to get stuck on externals” to the extent that he or she actually falls prey to the belief that “just because you have the externals right, you are being a good Christian.” There are in fact Catholics who unconsciously assume they are very pious because they attend and support meticulously celebrated traditional liturgies. They go to a splendid Mass on Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon they return home to nag their children, gossip about their co-workers, and consume whatever the Internet has to offer. These people exist. And there are traditionalist Catholics who are suspicious of anything that smacks of social action — that stuff is for liberals!

But we have to remember that these people are only one side of a divide. I remember talking with a bishop once who complained that his diocese seemed divided between those who think liturgy is important and those who think social justice is important, and he couldn’t persuade either side to think in both categories. So alongside the “extrinsicist” traditionalists described above, there are other Catholics who are offended by any insistence on liturgical beauty, because they take it as a statement against caring for the poor. Surely an insistence on externals must be pitted against heartfelt love for others!

What’s more, we have to remember that this same divide cuts across all times. There were medieval peasants who thought that an external ritual or relic could absolve them of interior guilt without repentance, and there were medieval heretics who thought that the body and what we do with it makes no difference, so long as our hearts are in the right place. St. Paul had to deal both with Christians who thought that extrinsic laws were the heart of the gospel and with Christians who thought that the Cross had liberated us from all exterior obligations whatsoever.

The external/internal divide cuts across all populations, including the non-religious. There are and have been throughout history upper-class people who think that maintaining proper externals — the correct house and tableware and the best manners and tasteful clothing and everything else decorous — expressed their acceptability and even superiority, regardless of how they slept around, gossiped, and embezzled. And there are and have been throughout history lower-class people who think that their good hearts excuse them from and even exclude them from good manners and tasteful living.

The divide even cuts across each layer within the human person. There are people who believe that your salvation is assured if you walk through the motions described in the Ten Commandments, regardless of whether your heart is cold as stone. And there are people who think that good intentions are all that count in morality, so that the right intention excuses breaking any or all of the Ten Commandments.

Once we broaden our view and see this division of external versus internal in all its universality, we can see through certain fallacious “both/and” claims. To claim that it is wrong for a person to say he prefers one liturgical form over another (or wishes that others would come to prefer it, too) sounds like a plea for the “both/and” approach. After all, we let everyone have what they want, as long as they don’t exalt it into a matter of principle.

In reality, however, such an “inclusive” claim is just a form of the tired old “either/or” of externals versus internals. If you care so much about externals, then you really must not care about internals. Someone who thinks this way will be tempted to apply to the “externalists” (as he conceives them) the tough words of Jesus, that seeming foe of externals: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith.” Unfortunately, the remainder of what Jesus says conveniently slips his mind: “These things you ought to have done, without neglecting the others” (Matt 23:23).

As so often happens, the extremes resemble one another in surprising ways. The extrinsicist rests secure in his beautiful exterior life even as he lies, cheats, and steals. The intrinsicist rests secure in what he perceives as good intentions even as he — well, lies, cheats, and steals. Hey, it’s for a good cause, right? If we don’t play hardball, the wrong party will get into national office, or the wrong man will be chosen as Pope, or those people will take over education in our district.

We should try to see both sides sympathetically. People do not usually end up on one or another side of the divide out of stupidity or malice but due to the huge difficulty of maintaining a correct balance. The temptation to internalism is real, for example, because the interior element truly is determinative: just read Psalm 49 [50]. To love God with all our heart and mind and soul is, after all, the greatest commandment. But the temptation to externalism is also real precisely because externals are important. What could be more important than the flesh of the God-made-man, which we are commanded to worship and adore?

But when Mary Magdalene clung to the feet of Jesus after His resurrection, He forbade her to touch Him, because — according to St. Thomas’s interpretation — He did not want her attached to His human flesh over His divine nature. Mary was not tempted to cling to Jesus out of contempt for the love of God or neighbor: she was tempted out of reverence for the supreme mystery of Salvation History! And neither did Jesus mean that we have to “get over” the Incarnation. For all eternity, we worship the Trinity in and through the exteriorly visible humanity of Christ the Lord (Rev 21:23).

Similarly, we need to admit that the temptation to externalism in liturgy is real, but it is real precisely because liturgy — the external thing we do — is so terribly important.