Two Recent Articles on Sacred Music

Readers may find interesting two recent articles by Trent Beattie concerning the ever-fresh subject of sacred music.

A fun look at what is and is not allowed in Mass... 

Is it possible for the love of sacred music to go too far? Comparing the Church’s directives with practical parish realities can often reveal a gap...

It is the duty of the priest to pray the Mass, but it does not follow that he is required to fill “empty spaces” therein with a multiplication of required prayers or the addition of prayers not even called for – no matter how beautiful they might be in themselves.

As silence accompanies the Consecration of the bread and wine, it is fitting to have silence at the consecration of ourselves – that is, when receiving Holy Communion.

Even if a parish choir does not sing vernacular hymns, it can still fall prey to the notion that wall-to-wall singing of some sort must accompany reception of Holy Communion.

Read more in “The Wills Are Alive with a Mound of Music.”

Extensive Q&A with Christopher Jasper of the Gregorian Chant Academy

Although someone may agree in principle that we should become more skilled in the Church’s music, there can be real hurdles to overcome in achieving the desired proficiency. Christopher Jasper has created highly popular online courses for success in that realm…

The singers may be very holy and operate with the best of intentions, but if they lack the musical abilities to do the music justice, well, that can be detrimental to those who hear it. It can be distracting or sometimes outright painful to listen to.

On the other hand, when most people, regardless of religion, do hear chant or polyphony sung very well – especially if they hear it live and in a beautiful church – are typically very moved by it and immediately sense the sacrality and transcendence of this kind of music.

Read more in “Enchanted by the Music of the Church.”

On “Hearing Mass”

Pope Pius XI famously said that Catholics should not be “detached and silent spectators” at Mass (Divini Cultus of 1928). I am sympathetic to this statement when it comes to the High Mass: there is little reason for the faithful not to sing the Ordinary and the various responses. But one wonders if Pius XI was already being influenced too much by a certain modern way of thinking, whereby doing something external, or at least seeming to be doing something, is the major point to be accentuated. This idea grew over the next forty years into the self-sapping activism of the Novus Ordo era.

Should we not instead be thinking first about the manner in which one is entering into the liturgy—the way one is assimilating it, relating to it interiorly?

In the old days it used to be said that Catholics “assisted” at Mass. This concept is fruitful. Every member of the body assists in (and at) the divine uplifting of the liturgy, each according to his place, but without thinking that he has to take on any particular action, other than faith-filled attention. It was also common in the old days, in fact for centuries, to say that Catholics went to “hear Mass.” We read in the lives of lay saints like Louis IX that “he heard Mass twice a day.”

Modern liturgists wince at that expression, for to them it seems to epitomize the worst of the Tridentine (or, let’s say, broadly medieval) era: a bunch of laity “doing nothing but” listening while the priest and server spoke all the words of the Mass on their behalf. In their view, only the ones saying or singing the Mass are doing it. Indeed, the dialogue Mass, promoted first by the same Pius XI, was intended as an alternative, one might even say a remedy, to move people from hearing to speaking.

But we should slow down and think more about hearing. Family counselors often like to make a distinction between hearing and listening—between mere auditory reception and actually absorbing the import of what is being said and responding appropriately. “You heard me, but did you listen to me?” When people are said to “hear Mass,” the meaning surely is that they are listening intently with the ear of the heart, to use the lovely expression of the Rule of St. Benedict.

Listening is a difficult activity to do well. It is something that requires and rewards experience, practice, concentration, receptivity, humility—an openness to being the carved-out space in which a word or sound can dwell and bear fruit. It is not for nothing that the vast majority of works of art that depict Our Lady show her looking and listening at the Archangel Gabriel, rather than talking back to him or taking action. She is pondering the Word of God in her cell; she receives his greeting and wonders within her heart what it means; after the dialogue (usually not depicted), she accepts the Word made flesh. The Virgin Mary assists at the first Mass; she hears the first Mass.

As John Paul II loved to say, the Blessed Virgin Mary reveals to us that being is more basic than doing, receiving is more fundamental than giving—just as our insertion into Christ at baptism, which happens to us (we suffer a spiritual death and God raises us up), is more basic to our identity than any particular act we perform on the basis of our baptism. No man makes himself a Christian; he (or his parents on his behalf) consent that he be made a Christian by God.

Modern times are characterized by an unusual degree of noise, busyness, and image saturation. We are always being drawn out of ourselves, out of our deep inner identity as sons of God, into distractions and dissipations. “You were inside and I was outside,” as St. Augustine said to God in the Confessions. For this reason, and without for a moment abandoning the importance of the High Mass as the most beautiful and normative expression of the liturgy, I will say that the quiet Low Mass is more relevant and more needed than ever, as a bulwark against the total extroversion and superficiality of secular life.

One wonders if the forms of meditation offered by Buddhism and other increasingly popular Far Eastern phenomena would ever have made such huge inroads in Western society without the loss of the one omnipresent form of “silent meditation” that we once had in abundance.

There have been many times in my life when I have longed for nothing more than a quiet Low Mass early in the morning. Attending it was like arriving at an oasis in the desert, or stepping through a low wooden door into a secret garden. Assisting at Mass, one can feel the roots sinking deeper into the earth, the branches reaching out higher towards the heavens, the leaves opening to the sun and the buds ripening. It is a time outside of time, a place of holy encounter, leaving one speechless and happy not to speak.

Biblical Types or Anticipations of Traditional Catholic Worship

Photo by Ramses Sudiang on Unsplash

With unabashed admiration for medieval allegorical commentators on the Mass who did not stop at the level of practical or historical explanations but went for deeper significance, playing like children in the garden of spiritual meanings that spring forth from the original literal seeds, I share with readers today certain suggestive Scripture verses that support or at least add additional weight to practices familiar in the usus antiquior. I do not claim, of course, that the human authors of these verses had in mind a future Christian liturgy of Europe in its fully-developed medieval condition. But we know that the Primary Author of Scripture did have in mind the many ways in which He would inspire the Church to glorify Him worthily in her traditional rites.

Separation of Sanctuary from Nave

“And Aaron was separated to minister in the holy of holies, he and his sons for ever, and to burn incense before the Lord, according to his ceremonies, and to bless his name for ever.” (1 Chron. 23:13)

“The chambers of the north, and the chambers of the south, which are before the separate building: they are holy chambers, in which the priests shall eat, that approach to the Lord into the holy of holies: there they shall lay the most holy things, and the offering for sin, and for trespass: for it is a holy place. And when the priests shall have entered in, they shall not go out of the holy places into the outward court: but there they shall lay their vestments, wherein they minister, for they are holy: and they shall put on other garments, and so they shall go forth to the people.” (Ezek. 42:13–14)

“The priests, and Levites, the sons of Sadoc, who kept the ceremonies for my sanctuary, when the children of Israel went astray from me: they shall come near to me, to minister to me: and they shall stand before me, to offer me the fat, and the blood, saith the Lord God. They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and to keep my ceremonies.” (Ezek. 44:15–16)

“Christ, being come an high priest of the good things to come…by his own blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption…. For Jesus is not entered into the holies made with hands, the patterns of the true: but into heaven itself, that he may appear now in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holies, every year with the blood of others: for then he ought to have suffered often from the beginning of the world: but now once at the end of ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself.” (Hebr. 9:11–12, 24–26)

“And it came to pass, when he [Zachary] executed the priestly function in the order of his course before God, according to the custom of the priestly office, it was his lot to offer incense, going into the temple of the Lord. And all the multitude of the people was praying without, at the hour of incense.” (Luke 1:8–10)

Incensation of the Altar

“And I saw seven angels standing in the presence of God; and there were given to them seven trumpets. And another angel came, and stood before the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given to him much incense, that he should offer of the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which is before the throne of God. And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God from the hand of the angel.” (Rev. 8:2–4)

“And Aaron was separated to minister in the holy of holies, he and his sons for ever, and to burn incense before the Lord, according to his ceremonies, and to bless his name for ever.” (1 Chron. 23:13)

“Who then can be able to build him a worthy house? if heaven, and the heavens of heavens cannot contain him: who am I that I should be able to build him a house? but to this end only, that incense may be burnt before him.” (2 Chron. 2:6)”

“Our fathers have sinned and done evil in the sight of the Lord God, forsaking him: they have turned away their faces from the tabernacle of the Lord, and turned their backs. They have shut up the doors that were in tile porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burnt incense, nor offered holocausts in the sanctuary of the God of Israel. Therefore the wrath of the Lord hath been stirred up against Juda and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, and to destruction, and to be hissed at, as you see with your eyes. Behold, our fathers are fallen by the sword, our sons, and our daughters, and wives are led away captives for this wickedness. Now therefore I have a mind that we make a covenant with the Lord the God of Israel, and he will turn away the wrath of his indignation from us. My sons, be not negligent: the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him, and to minister to him, and to worship him, and to burn incense to him.” (2 Chron 29:6–11)

“Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight; the lifting up of my hands, as evening sacrifice.” (Ps. 140:2)

Facing the Altar as Mediators, Not Towards the People

“And the priests went in, and stood before the face of the altar and the temple: and weeping, they said: Thou, O Lord, hast chosen this house for thy name to be called upon therein, that it might be a house of prayer and supplication for thy people.” (1 Macc. 7:36–37)

“And the priests prostrated themselves before the altar in their priests’ vestments, and called upon him from heaven…” (2 Macc. 3:15)

“And Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the sight of the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands towards heaven; and said: Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee in heaven above, or on earth beneath: who keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants that have walked before thee with all their heart…. And it came to pass, when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication to the Lord, that he rose from before the altar of the Lord: for he had fixed both knees on the ground, and had spread his hands towards heaven.” (1 Kg. 8:22–23, 54)

“Our fathers have sinned and done evil in the sight of the Lord God, forsaking him: they have turned away their faces from the tabernacle of the Lord, and turned their backs.” (2 Chron. 29:6)

“And they have turned their backs to me, and not their faces: when I taught them early in the morning, and instructed them, and they would not hearken to receive instruction.” (Jer 32:33)

The Silences During Mass—especially in the Canon

“And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven, as it were for half an hour.” (Rev. 8:1)

“For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: If you return and be quiet, you shall be saved: in silence and in hope shall your strength be.” (Isa. 30:15)

“It is good to wait with silence for the salvation of God.” (Lam. 3:26)

“Hear in silence, and for thy reverence good grace shall come to thee…. In many things be as if thou wert ignorant, and hear in silence and withal seeking.” (Sir. 32:9, 12)

“For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy almighty Word leapt down from heaven from Thy royal throne.” (Wis. 18:14–15)

“But the Lord is in His holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before Him.” (Hab. 2:20)

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube channel.

“Reactive Participation”: Further Thoughts on the Missa Murmurata

In light of last week’s kerfuffle, it may be helpful to introduce to some readers a certain book that should be familiar already, but in these days of confusion, one hardly knows. Wasting no time in preliminaries, here, then, is an altar missal:

Yes, the one depicted above is black, while most extant copies are red or burgundy, but that’s an accidental difference. Here’s the title page:

This is a 1920 missal (as indicated in the mention of Benedict XV) in an edition published in New York in 1947. Classic years of the untampered-with Missale Romanum.

In this book, as in its precursors and successors (to 1962), there is a section entitled Rubricae Generales Missalis. These are the general rubrics — directions for the priest using the missal, telling him what to do and say, and how to do it and say it. Within, there is a chapter numbered XVI:

Voilà! These are the paragraphs on the parts of Mass to be said aloud or silently, as translated in my preceding post. The paragraphs with their clear content really do exist and really do govern the celebration of Mass. They are not “a personal preference,” or an attempt at quashing legitimate diversity, or a Trojan Horse for the Dialogue Mass or the Radical Liturgical Movement.

The article “The Parish Low Mass is Not a ‘Silent’ Mass” met with fierce resistance on the part of some who do not read carefully or make distinctions.

Let’s review what was said.

1. Priests should observe the rubrics of the missal.

2. This is even more the case if the rubric is designed to share the public prayer of the Church with the public.

3. It is a good thing to be able to hear the prayers of the Mass that are meant to be said or sung aloud, regardless of whether one has a daily missal to hand or not. Indeed, if one likes to follow the Proper of the Mass but happens to be sans missal, audibility becomes still more important.

And let’s review what was not said.

1. There should never be any silence at all for meditating or for praying the Rosary.

2. Everyone should be saying everything at Mass — “dialogue till you die!”

3. A silent monastic Mass is evil and should be abolished.

4. My personal preferences should be those of everyone else.

5. Everyone should have his eyes or nose glued into a hand missal.

Here are five pieces of advice for critics of the Missa recitata:

1. Learn to read the rubrics. They are quite interesting, have a rich history, and are there for a good reason. At least, this can be safely assumed until the reform, at first tipsy, later intoxicated, gets into full swing in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s.

2. Abusus non tollit usum: the deformation of right principle by the reformers does not diminish the rightness of said principle. The reformers wanted the liturgy to be within the hands and hearts of the faithful. Fair enough. Then they slashed and burned the inherited liturgy, with its immeasurable treasures, and built a sleek new liturgy that reflected their modern prejudices. Bad business. The desideratum did not necessitate the disaster.

3. Slippery slope arguments are amongst the weakest. “If you think the priest should speak up, or the faithful join their prayers to the Church’s, then — then — it’s only a matter of time before you’ll want — the vernacular! and communion in the hand! and altar girls! and…” Really?

4. A Low Mass offered according to the rubrics still has plenty of silence in it. No one in the traditional movement will want to do away with the silent Canon that we all dearly love. By this time, we have learned a thing or two from the dark years of autodemolition.

Why have some people arrived at the idea that a stone-silent parish Low Mass, contra rubricas, is either ideal, or at least a form of legitimate diversity? (Again, please read carefully: I am speaking of a regular parish Mass intentionally offered in the presence of a congregation, not a monastic side-chapel Mass at 6:30 a.m. with a couple of boy scouts on their knees in the dim shadow.)

1. The Missa Murmurata was a highly useful precaution against English soldiers combing through the hedges and bogs to arrest Irish priests. Noise attracted danger.

2. The Missa Murmurata is also as remote as possible from the Novus Ordo and all its pomps and works. One gets to relish a nice chunk of quiet personal prayer, while leaving “that liturgy business” to the priest, and then one can receive Communion. In short: the ideal communion service! (And people wonder where the abuses of the postconciliar period came from? Hint: they were already in place, albeit less offensively!) This is what I call “Reactive Participation”: anything that happens to be done in connection with the Novus Ordo should never be done in the old Mass.

While skittishness about repeating the abuses that the Novus Ordo ushered in, especially the reformers’ faulty notion of what constitutes participatio actuosa, is understandable, one ought not to allow such a fear to cloud one’s judgement. Likewise, while the practice of silent Masses was prudent in Ireland under English oppression (see Mass in a Connemara Cabin by Aloysius O’Kelly) and indeed testifies to the heroic fortitude of a great Christian people under trying circumstances, it hardly constitutes an exemplar of the best we can offer to God in a time of freedom.

Priests who remember starting up the TLM again after its near extinction remember what it was like in those bumpy days. Any movement towards having the people participate, other than flipping pages and suppressing noisy kids, was met with “You don’t mean the DIALOGUE MASS, Father?” In other words, anything but Cleveland 1956 was perceived as stepping onto the slippery slope.

Now one need have no particular bone to pick with Cleveland or 1956 in order to have a fundamental objection to the notion that the public prayer of the Church should not be given to God in a public manner that the faithful themselves, if they wish, can internalize in the normal way in which speech is heard and pondered. The very texts of the old Mass are full of ageless wisdom and burning charity. [1] This is our common possession as members of the Mystical Body of Christ, and some of it — the parts codified in the rubrics under discussion — is meant to be prayed in common, in such a way that those who either have a missal or have learned Latin can follow and internalize those antiphons, prayers, and readings if they wish. Outside of individual higher states of prayer, which in any case go beyond words, people have a normal human expectation to hear and grasp the words of the liturgy. After all, it is not, as such, a private ineffable ecstasy, but a verbal sacrifice of praise.

The admiration for St. Pius X is surely well-deserved. It was this Pope who not only encouraged frequent communion but also urged Catholics to “pray the Mass, not merely pray at Mass.” There is more than one way to carry out this advice, and indeed, as Pius XII famously said, not even the same person always wants to pray the same way. Some days we look at a missal, other days we don’t; some days we might pray the Sorrowful Mysteries and meditate on the Crucifixion during the Canon, other days we might sit there quietly, watching, listening, silently absorbing the gestures that are themselves a sublime form of prayer. The rubrics of the Church are meant to guard and foster all these ways of participating, not to dictate only one way to the laity; and yet, allowing for slight differences, there must be a correct way for the priest to offer the Mass if our worship is not to explode into as many different liturgies as there are celebrants. This, in fact, is what the Novus Ordo has done for the Church, and we can see the fragments of faith and innocence scattered about, past all hope of recollection.

In short, there ought to be an objective stability in how Mass is offered so that the faithful know what to expect, know what Holy Mother Church is sharing with them to nourish their prayer, and can, accordingly, conform themselves to the liturgy in order to pray as best they can, in their several ways.


NOTE

[1] This is why I tend to agree with the perspective of a sermon on the use of the missal by Fr. Joseph Kreuter, OSB, printed in Orate Fratres of October 7, 1933, and reprinted at Rorate Caeli.

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

The Parish Low Mass Is Not a “Silent” Mass: The Rubrics on Clara Voce

Last Pentecost octave, I happened to be visiting a big city and decided to go to a nearby Latin Mass on the Ember Friday. I invited two acquaintances to come with me.

I was surprised when Mass began and I could hear nothing of the dialogue of priests and servers. “Perhaps this is just —  for some reason — how they do the prayers at the foot of the altar,” I thought to myself. The priest mounted the steps and went to the missal to recite the Introit. Again, total silence. My bewilderment turned to frustration and disappointment as the entire Mass continued, with hardly a single word of it being audible. The only thing recited clara voce was the “Domine, non sum dignus” before the communion of the faithful.

Since I was traveling, I did not have my St. Andrew’s Daily Missal with me, and my two guests, who are not regular attendees, had no access to the propers either. I wasn’t expecting this lack of a missal to be a problem, as I can follow the Latin to a great extent if I can just hear the words. Hearing nothing, I was simply watching a priest say his private Mass. The motions are beautiful and the silence is prayerful, but I still felt deprived of access to the parts of the Mass that the Church intends the faithful to hear. Aside from verbal comprehension (which, I recognize, is often overrated nowadays), it is comforting to hear the Latin words floating through the church at the appropriate times. There is benefit in hearing the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei.

Evidently my guests felt a similar perplexity, since they both said to me afterwards at breakfast: “Is the old Mass always so completely silent?” I had to respond: “No, it’s not supposed to be. When I attend Mass elsewhere — with the Fraternity of St. Peter, or the Institute of Christ the King, or a diocesan priest — one can hear most of the Mass of the Catechumens, and some parts of the Mass of the Faithful.”

The rubrics of the usus antiquior stipulate unambiguously which parts of the Proper and Ordinary of the Mass are to be recited in an elevated tone of voice. The Rubricae generales Missalis, c. XVI, ‘De his quae clara voce, aut secreto dicenda sunt in Missa,’ reads as follows (my translation):

In a private Mass the following are to be said clara voce: the antiphon and psalm before the Introit, the Confession and that which follows (except Aufer a nobis and Oramus te); again, the Introit, Kyrie, Gloria, Dominus vobiscum, Oremus, Flectamus genua, Levate, Collect or Collects, Prophecy, Epistle, Gradual, Alleluia, Tract, Sequence, Gospel, Creed, Offertory antiphon, Orate fratres (just those two words), Preface, Nobis quoque peccatoribus (just those three words), Per omnia &c. with Pater noster, Per omnia &c. with Pax Domini, Agnus Dei, Domine non sum dignus (just those four words), Communion antiphon, Postcommunion or Postcommunions, Humiliate capita, Ite missa est or Benedicamus Domino or Requiescat in pace, Blessing, and Last Gospel or other Gospel. All the rest is to be said secreto.

Of great interest is the next paragraph, which specifies that clara voce means spoken in such a way that those around may hear and follow:

The priest ought to take the utmost care that things which are to be said clara voce are pronounced distinctly and appropriately — not very quickly, so that he can pay attention to what he reads, nor exceedingly slowly, lest the listeners be afflicted with tedium; neither with a voice excessively raised, lest others be disturbed who perhaps might be offering Mass in the same church at the same time, nor with one that is too faint [submissa], lest those gathered around be not able to hear, but in a moderate and earnest tone, that it may both stir up devotion and be accommodated to the listeners that they may understand what is read. Those things, on the other hand, which are to be said secreto should be pronounced in such a way that only the priest himself may hear them, and they are not heard by those gathered around.

The “marching orders” contained in this rubric, however flowery its expression, are not especially hard to grasp and put into practice. While it is true that some churches are so vast that even a priest speaking clara voce might not be able to be heard or understood by those sitting far away, I have found that it depends not so much on the size of a church but on its the architecture, and on such factors as whether the heating or air conditioning is blowing, or fans are running, or other ambient noise is coming in. At the church I visited on Ember Friday, it was not difficult to hear the priest when he did speak up. Despite the great volume of space, the Latin was perfectly comprehensible; the acoustics would be excellent for a Missa recitata or Missa lecta.

Low Mass at a side chapel of Clear Creek

It seems to me important to recognize an unofficial distinction not discussed in the rubrics. There is a difference between a publicly scheduled Mass offered at the high altar in the expected presence of a congregation of people, and a “private” Mass of a monk at a side altar in a monastery, adjacent to a dozen other monks simultaneously offering Masses. At Clear Creek, Le Barroux, Norcia, Silverstream, and other such places, those whispered early morning Masses — with the faithful seldom more than a few feet away from their chosen side chapel — seem like quite a different affair from a parochial Mass at a high altar in the main church, with the circumstantes standing dozens or possibly hundreds of feet away. The latter scenario demands more care on the part of the priest to ensure that the audible parts are indeed audible.

In the end, I was grateful to be able to assist at Holy Mass during the Pentecost octave, immerse myself in prayer, and rejoice in the beauty of God’s house; I was even more grateful to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion. Nevertheless, it disturbed me to be cut off from the antiphons, orations, and readings that Holy Mother Church wishes the faithful to be able to hear with their ears. It seems to me that priests, if any may have fallen into bad habits in this regard, ought to bear in mind that speaking those parts of the Proper and Ordinary clara voce, as specified in the rubrics, is a way of showing respect and consideration to the faithful who come to church to drink from the greatest source of prayer we enjoy as Catholics: the sacred liturgy.

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

The Dire Need for a “New Habit of Mind”: MIT Argues for the TLM

Yes, you read that correctly: MIT, as in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, my title is a bit deceptive. MIT isn’t arguing explicitly for the traditional Latin Mass; they are not quite so avant-garde. Rather, a recent podcast by an MIT professor, Alan Lightman, in discussing how technology and society have affected the way humans spend time and how society itself is ordered, touches on several dire needs of modern men that find a powerful remedy in the traditional worship of Catholics.

Prof. Lightman’s talk begins and ends with an anecdote about a trip to Cambodia, when he asked a village woman how long it took her to ride every morning ten miles on a dirt road to get stuff for the kitchen. He was surprised when she responded that she hadn’t thought about how long it took. Compared to how closely he, as a modern Westerner, monitored “time cost,” he was taken aback that someone could live with a calm indifference to the passage of time. She just took the time that was needed for the task.

How long does Mass take? This is a question that seems to be of great importance in the mainstream Catholic world, where people want to “get in and get out” in as “timely” a manner as possible. There is brunch to be made, or a sporting event to get to, or yardwork to be done, or some shopping delayed all week; in any case, who wants to be in church for very long? When I attended Georgetown University for a year (1989–1990), I learned about a Jesuit priest there who was famous for an 11-minute Sunday Mass at 11pm. It was very popular with students who wanted to “fulfill their obligation.”

We know that Catholics who attend the traditional Latin Mass are a self-selecting group (this already tells us something significant, namely, that those who love the liturgy are drawn to its traditional forms!). It is nevertheless worth pointing out that, on the whole, they are much less concerned about “how long Mass is going to take,” and are willing to attend, or even gladly look forward to, lengthy solemn liturgies. Like the Cambodian woman, they are willing to take time to travel the long road to the town and back. Apprehending that the liturgy is the best and most important thing we do as Catholics, they want to spend time with it.

The example of walking on a road is a humdrum one, but more generally we can say that we spend time on the things and people we love. The saying “time is money” is familiar, but a more correct version of it would be “time is life.” Our life is measured out in time. What we spend time on is what we spend life on. It does not seem too likely that the Lord will ask us on judgment day whether we spent enough time on sports, shopping, work, or sleep. It seems more likely He will ask us why we didn’t pray more when we could and should have done so.

Returning now to Prof. Lightman, I was particularly struck by these remarks of his, which begin 25 minutes into the podcast:

I think that we are destroying our inner world now via the wired world [after having destroyed the natural world]. It’s more subtle, it’s not as obvious, but we’re beginning to document the bad effects of our frenzied, hyperconnected lifestyle.... I think that the situation is dire. I think in some ways it’s just as serious as the destruction of our environment, even though it’s partly invisible. And we may already be at the point of no return.... We’re losing our ability to know who we are and what’s important to us. So is there anything that we can do? Somehow we need to create a new habit of mind, both as individuals and as a society. We need a new mental attitude that values our inner reflection, values stillness, values privacy, values personal reflection, that honors the inner self.

He then makes a number of suggestions: for K-12 students, a ten minute period of silence daily. For all students, more time to reflect on academic work, rather than pumping out assignments. He suggests quiet rooms in offices where people can go to read a book, close their eyes, or pray. For families, the evening meal should be entirely “unplugged.” Everyone should take walks. At the societal level, there should be “screen-free zones.” (This last suggestion was music to my ears. I have noticed over the years that almost every public space—in hotels, restaurants, airports, wherever people gather—is dominated by a giant TV screen. This makes it practically impossible for the center of gravity, the weight of attention, to reside in a single person reading a book, or in a conversation among friends.) A last point made by Prof. Lightman is our need for what he calls “unstructured time,” that is, time when we are not being made to do anything in particular, but are free to be alone with our thoughts.

This podcast is especially interesting because it shows a prominent secular thinker noticing a deep crisis and searching for a way out. I think that implicit in his searching is a sense that the foundation of the society is deeply flawed. Prof. Lightman gives us a glimpse at modern society stumbling around trying to find a way out of the mess it has made in all its novel cleverness. He gets the correct diagnosis, but are his proposals likely to be effective—or even taken seriously? One could say they are good but not radical enough. Will a quiet room in an office make a big difference? Doubtful. Not without some other change in mental disposition.

The fundamental decision is how we order our lives. Are we ordering our lives as the world directs, or should we try something else? It is not easy to get out of the wiring of modern society. Lightman says we need to find “a new habit of mind.” I don’t know if he knows about the ancient Latin Mass and the other rituals of traditional Catholicism, but it cannot fail to strike us how well these things, which were once widespread and are returning again in our day, embody the slow, reflective, low-tech, hands-on approach Lightman recommends as necessary for sanity and survival. As someone once pointed out, the gimmicky work by John Cage, 4’33, which consists of four minutes and thirty-three seconds of non-performance and the ambient sounds of the concert venue, was “written” at a time (1952) when millions of Catholics every week experienced about this much silence every week during the silent Roman Canon. Cage was hailed as a path-breaking genius, but he was an infantile dilettante compared to Holy Mother Church.

One of the great virtues of the traditional liturgy is that it enables the practice of a new habit of mind that can free humans from their enslavement to superficial things; it reflects the fundamental choice of Christianity to order all things to God, to make time for Him, to make room for Him. The traditional liturgy proved itself able to be the axis of Christendom, the burning heart of religious life, the source of strength for marriage and family, the glue of a Catholic society. Can we say this about the New Order liturgy, as it is practiced almost everywhere — and due to its own systemic features, as understood by its promulgator?

The radical theocentricity of the classical Roman Rite, which has as its counterpart the primacy of the interior life over external activity and phenomena, paradoxically leads to the fullest possible development of the external physiognomy of the rite and the aesthetic phenomena associated with it. This is not a contradiction but a necessary consequence of taking first things first. The Tridentine liturgy makes possible an unstructured interior freedom precisely by its dependable discipline of ritual form and its continual orientation to God. Never does a priest pray as intensely as he does when facing ad orientem and whispering the sacred words; never do laity pray as intensely as when they are kneeling at Mass, letting it envelop their senses and prompt their hearts.

In contrast, under the reign of liturgy designed as a social workshop or “school of Christian sociology” (Paul VI’s description), it will be a perpetual struggle for worshipers to recover the theocentricity and interiority that have been lost, and, ironically, a further struggle to acquire for it the splendor of external features as well. They will always seem like “glued on” accretions rather than emergent properties.

Other architecture at MIT is rather more like the reformed liturgy

Prof. Lightman’s observations, which are echoed by many commentators on modern society and technology (e.g., Marshall McLuhan, Augusto Del Noce, Ivan Illich, Neil Postman, Mark Bauerlein) fly in the face of the basic assumptions of the liturgical New Order, namely, that modernity is, or contains, a movement of the Holy Spirit that we should embrace. Instead of offering a truthful counterpoint to the worldly spirit, the New Order regurgitates that worldly spirit under quasi-liturgical trappings. The lost modern man will not find his way back to that which is perennial and, in that sense, unmodern in the one place he should be able to find it: the liturgy of the Mass.

Hence the vital spiritual, psychological, and sociological need in our time for the usus antiquior. The traditional Mass is not merely a question of aesthetics; rather it concerns all of the crises that we face as a society, as a race, as a planet. The only way forward is a reordering to God. This begins with traditional liturgical rites, Eastern and Western, which instill in man the practice of this ordering, without openly or subtly contradicting it. A key idea here, understood well by the wisdom of Catholic tradition, is that this reordering takes daily effort and work. We must apply ourselves carefully to this work. It goes against the grain of fallen nature. It’s not a whimsical word or profession now and then that makes the practice effective. This is one of the great virtues of the traditional liturgy. It helps us in this work when we need help the most. It is folly to set aside that help.

One last thought. It is sad that the most common reflex for people who become aware of the inner crisis of modern Western society is to turn to Far Eastern or New Age spiritual practices rather than to the beautiful Christian tradition. A friend of mine once met a nice young woman from the American South. She was reading a book on Buddhism. The friend mentioned in passing that Christianity, too, had a rich spiritual and mystical tradition, and gave her some titles to look up. Many years later, she wrote to him out of the blue to say “Thank you for helping me find my way back to the Catholic faith.”

In spite of decades of churchmen doing their best to obscure, deform, abandon, or proscribe the rich spiritual and mystical tradition of Catholicism, Our Lord will not allow it to be taken away from His Church. Most Catholics do not know it yet, but this tradition is still alive, as health-giving as it ever was and ever will be. We must do our part to make it known and loved.

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

“Where Has God Gone?”: The Pressure of Horror Vacui

Horror Vacui (1980) by Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945)

In a famous passage in Joyous Wisdom, “the parable of the madman,” Friedrich Nietzsche writes:

“Where has God gone?” he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? … Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? … God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves?[1]

I was corresponding with a gentleman recently who wrote the following to me (and I reproduce it here with his permission):

Maybe I’m a babe in the woods, but last night I had the shock of my life. I went on YouTube and looked up an Orthodox monastery in Romania that I visited during communism. Some man had apparently been there and taken some pictures, and now he’s posted a slide show to YouTube. He wrote in the description that he’d used “Gregorian music” in the background, and as my dad used to say, I pretty near dropped my teeth. Someone had apparently had people sing Gregorian chant in a studio, added a drum track and a little bit of synthesizer, and had a woman’s voice intruding whispering little slogans about peace and other things. The biggest shock to me, though, was that the man who posted this — who was no spring chicken — actually thought this was Gregorian chant. There are probably lots of Catholics who think the same thing, but it’s Gregorian chant distorted for New Age purposes. I’d never heard anything like that before!
          It comes close to one of my universal laws about food: Anything that is beautiful and subtle will eventually have fruit flavoring or corn syrup added. People always feel a compulsion to add something. But they never take anything away.
          Recently I had to attend Mass at my neighborhood parish, and I discovered that what is really wrong — besides all the other things that are wrong — is what in art school we were taught to call horror vacui, fear of empty space. A typical amateur artist wants to fill every millimeter of space on a canvas with some kind of image, so the whole painting fights with itself. Good artists know how to use empty space. At this parish there’s not a second of silence from a half hour before Mass starts until after the crowd leaves. If you want quiet time to prepare for Mass, you have to arrive about two hours early. About ten minutes before Mass starts, the chatter has swelled to the volume of a pavilion at the state fair, and then once Mass starts, the musicians will not leave a second of quiet without twanging. Not even after communion. When I was a kid, the very same church was solemn and tranquil before Mass. No one breathed a word. Now people confuse church with a meetin’ hall and Mass with a TV show. Just the simple fact that the musicians don’t see the importance of receding at certain points during the liturgy is bothersome to me as someone with a visual arts background.

This colorful and all-too-true catalog of horrors, of the horror vacui sort, is one more indication of the unfathomable level of cultural regression and religious ignorance at this time in Western history. Apart from particular causes of regression and ignorance, there is a general cause, laid over all like a stifling blanket, that prevents us from recognizing our situation for the abysmal prodigy it is: the arrogance of modern man, who is supposed to be so “advanced” and to have progressed beyond all other ages. In reality, as Pope Pius XII once said, “the technical age will accomplish its monstrous masterpiece of transforming man into a giant of the physical world at the expense of his spirit, which is reduced to that of a pygmy in the supernatural and eternal world.”[2]

Pope Francis recently spoke in a general audience about the importance of observing moments of silence in the Mass, but he failed to show any awareness of two obvious facts.

First, silence in the new rite is artificial and barren of ritual significance. It does not arise because the priest is busy doing something else quietly, so that a natural span of silence results for everyone else, nor does it arise from the schola cantorum’s chanting of the Gradual and Alleluia. Inasmuch as this novum silentium is at the beck and call of the celebrant, it becomes a subtle mechanism for enhancing his “presidential status,” since he decides when to start and stop it. In that way, it is more like yoga meditation under the direction of a guru than it is Christian liturgical prayer.

Second, silence before, during, and after Mass has been killed, and its assassin is the liturgical reform in every decade of its implementation. For decades, the GIRM has been practically a dead letter when it comes to the actual liturgical life of most parishes. The progressives have been only too happy to push along countless practices that go explicitly against the GIRM, using the sponge of their hegemony to wipe away the entire horizon and unchain the earth from its sun, and no one has seriously attempted to correct them, even after Redemptionis Sacramentum, which did little or nothing to reverse the perpetual falling of liturgy “backward, sideward, forward, in all directions.” Pardon me, therefore, if I cough like Jeeves whenever someone with a Bertie Wooster grasp of liturgy invokes the GIRM as a reference point.

Before his humiliation by Pope Francis and his (voluntary or involuntary?) radio silence, Cardinal Sarah was constantly reminding people, like a voice crying in the wilderness, that nothing is more urgent than the serious protection and promotion of silence in our lives — not just in our liturgical worship, but in our personal prayer, even in our leisure and recreation. Without this empty space, there can be no interiority, no contemplation, no actual worship as opposed to “busy work,” the sort that substitute teachers give their fidgeting pupils while the real teachers are absent. We seem to be crushed by horror vacui, and it is only getting worse with the rapid inundation of all manner of pocketable or wearble devices, which fill every waking moment of our lives with the noise of information and entertainment . . . “the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God.”

At this strange moment in history, the new liturgical movement is also going to have to be a movement for natural, normal, face-to-face human interaction, sans distracting digital demons; for time spent making and repairing things with one’s own hands; for the stabilitas loci that comes from being quiet in a chair, at a table, in a room, by a window, with a book and nothing else. Such things are the natural analogues of the intimate contact with intangible beauty that comes from singing or hearing plainchant at Mass, smelling the incense, seeing the glittering gold on cope and chalice, becoming aware of one’s breathing or heartbeart in the silent Canon.

Some questions we must ask: What are the cultural preconditions — the personal prerequisites — for being able to respond from the depths of one’s soul to the needs and demands of the liturgy; for recognizing that in liturgy we walk fearfully on holy ground, as we enter a charged space filled with angels; for awakening to the sense of divine presence that would infallibly guide us back to our traditional modes of worship, abandoning with a sigh of relief all the modern claptrap that burdens us?

Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.

NOTES

[1] Cf. The Portable Nietzsche, ed. Walter Kaufmann (n.p.: Viking Press, 1968), 95.
[2] “…l’era tecnica compirà il suo mostruoso capolavoro di trasformare l’uomo in un gigante del mondo fisico a spese del suo spirito ridotto a pigmeo del mondo soprannaturale ed eterno.” Retrieved here.

Time for the Soul to Absorb the Mysteries — Part 3: The Communion

(Links to Part 1 and Part 2)

Continuing our exploration of how the ancient Roman Rite has, built into it, sufficient time or leisure for the appropriation of its sacred content, today I would like to focus on the segment of the liturgy usually referred to as the Communion rite, which, in a well-celebrated usus antiquior, is a veritable oasis of tranquility.

“Deep calleth on deep, at the noise of thy flood-gates. All thy heights and thy billows have passed over me” (Ps 41:8). After the long silence of the Roman Canon, the uttering or chanting of the Lord’s Prayer emerges like the cry of a swimmer raising his head above the water. Soon, though, he is submerged again in the Libera nos, followed shortly after by the rich prayers of preparation for Holy Communion, the threefold Domine, non sum dignus, the poignant psalm verses.

I’ll admit that I used to feel a little impatient right around this time. We’ve had our oasis of silent worship during the Canon, and just as the sung or recited prayers are cranking up again, we find ourselves confronted once more with several sizeable pauses: the gap between the Lord’s Prayer and the per omnia saecula saeculorum preceding the Pax Domini, and then the gap between the Agnus Dei and the Confiteor/Ecce Agnus Dei. Why are we standing or kneeling and waiting for stuff to happen? Can’t we move on?

One could answer this question with a disquisition on the development of this part of the liturgy and the importance of the various prayers and gestures that the priest is busy with at that moment. But here we are considering the moral and spiritual benefit that accrues to the people from the way the liturgy developed. This benefit is summed up in the famous words of Milton: “They also serve who only stand and wait.” Certain virtues or spiritual dispositions are formed precisely in these gaps or pauses, these stretches of profound and expectant silence. We know what is coming, and yet it still has to come, in its own way and at its own time. We may not, must not, rush it in our desire to be “in charge.” It is like having to wait nine months for a child to be born. How hard it is to go for so many months without seeing the child, or even, in many cases, knowing whether it is a boy or a girl!

Waiting for the priest at the altar, waiting for the liturgy to do its work at its own pace, is a model of our stance vis-à-vis life and death. Think of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who had to wait for her Son to suffer his agony, die upon the cross, and be taken down. The Mass reflects this trustful stance of waiting for God to act and readying oneself to meet Him, to be acted upon — that is, to suffer, and thus, to partake of His victory, when and as He wishes to share it. Thinking of it this way, I have learned not only to accept but to welcome and appreciate these pauses in the post-Canon portion of the Mass.

Let us return to the rich prayers of the liturgy at this juncture, most of which are said silently by the priest. Laity with daily missals often make these prayers their own, but just as often they may pray in their own words or thoughts or desires or emptiness as they await their invitation to the banquet of immortality. The priest’s separate communion brings two immense goods: first, it strongly accentuates the de fide teaching that the priesthood of the priest and the priesthood of the faithful are essentially different and that, as a result, only the priest’s communion is required for the completion of the holy sacrifice; secondly, it allows the faithful an ample moment of proximate preparation, in which we can take a big spiritual breath (so to speak) before we approach the altar ourselves. I was recently reminded of the importance of this moment when reading about a medieval nun, St. Mechtilde of Hackeborn (c. 1240–1298), who had the pious custom of reciting five Hail Marys before receiving Holy Communion:

At the first Hail Mary, she reminded our Lady of the solemn hour when she conceived a Son in her virginal womb, at the word of the Angel, and drew Him to her from heaven by her profound humility. She asked her to obtain for her a pure conscience and profound humility.
         At the second Hail Mary, she reminded her of the happy moment when she took Jesus for the first time into her arms and first saw Him in His Sacred Humanity. She prayed Mary to obtain for her a true knowledge of herself.
         At the third Hail Mary, she begged our Lady to remember that she had always been prepared to receive grace and had never placed any obstacle to its operation. She begged Mary to obtain for her a heart always ready to receive divine grace.
         At the fourth Hail Mary, she reminded our Lady with what devotion and gratitude she received on earth the body of her well-beloved Son, knowing better than anyone the salvation to be found there by mankind. Mechtilde begged her to obtain that her heart might be filled with worthy feelings of gratitude. If men knew the blessings which flow for them from the body of Jesus Christ, they would faint with joy.
         At the fifth Hail Mary, she reminded our Lady of the reception given to her by her divine Son when He invited her to take her place near Him in heaven in the midst of transports of joy.[1]

Everyone who attends the usus antiquior can understand why St. Mectilde was able to do this as her own “pious custom.” Quite simply: she had the time, the space, the silence, to recite five Hail Marys before going to communion. Alas, such a thing is well-nigh unimaginable in the Novus Ordo, when one is scarcely allowed an opportunity to collect one’s thoughts, let alone enjoy the presence of mind to pray five Hail Marys for these noble intentions! A mystic like St. Mectilde would have fared rather badly any time after about 1964, since the liturgy would no longer have been able to nourish her interior life as it had done before.

If the saints have warned us to guard against lapsing into a routine of thoughtless, unprepared communions — even in the best of circumstances, when the liturgy itself, with earnest prayer and pools of silence, furnished every opportunity to rise above this fault! — what would they say about our situation today, when the casual, routine, indiscriminate and undiscerning reception of the Holy Eucharist is the norm throughout the Catholic Church, rather than the exception?

A different Mectilde, Mother Catherine Mectilde de Bar (1614–1698), foundress of the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration, describes what happens when a person receives communion. Her description helps us to appreciate why St. Thomas Aquinas says that two things are required for a fruitful communion: being in a state of grace, and being in a state of actual devotion.[2] A certain devout recollection is required from the communicant in order to follow Our Lord whither He goes, for He hides Himself in the depths of the soul:

Jesus Christ, being thus in the soul, whither does He withdraw? As I said, to the sancta sanctorum of the soul, which is its most intimate depth and which serves as a sanctuary for this High Priest and as a temple where He celebrates His divine and terrible sacrifice of all that He is to His Father. This sacrifice He wants to renew in the depth of each soul as in a holy temple, for which it was consecrated on the day of baptism. O inconceivable marvel! Jesus Christ descends into our hearts in order to sacrifice Himself and to celebrate there His solemn Mass in profound silence. All is quiet in this temple, the angels and saints admire and adore the way the Lord humbles Himself there, and the Eternal Father is well pleased.[3]

I might add in passing that the theoretically optional but in practice mandatory “sign of peace” only contributes to the superficiality and spirit of distraction. The Novus Ordo seemingly does not want you to drift away from the surface of things: since it supposed to build up the community, the People of God, you must be forcibly reminded of that at every turn. This, I think, might explain why so many pastors seem content to allow the faithful to chit-chat before and after Mass rather than catechizing them about the sacred silence that befits the temple of God. This chit-chat is, in a way, the conversation one would expect at the family dinner table, which is what the Mass has been reduced to in progressive circles. How strange it would be for guests at a meal to keep silent, close their eyes, and speak only in whispers!

But we are not at a mere meal; we are at a sacrificial banquet, whose host is the crucified and risen Lord. Our behavior should be utterly different. It should never remain on the surface but respond to the still, small voice that calls us to the heights and depths of Our Lord’s infernal sorrow and celestial joy: “Deep calleth on deep…”

In the fourth installment of this series, I will consider the ablutions to the last Gospel, and find, once more, that the usus antiquior as it has developed under the care of Divine Providence displays a subtle grasp of human psychology and divine largesse in pacing the conclusion of the liturgy.


NOTES

[1] From The Love of the Sacred Heart, Illustrated by St. Mechtilde, with a Foreword by the Lord Bishop of Salford (London: Burns, Oates, and Washbourne, 1922), 164.

[2] See, for example, Scriptum super Sententiarum, Lib. IV, d. 9, q. 1, a. 4, qa. 2, sol.

[3] Mother Mectilde, The True Spirit of the Perpetual Adorers of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, ch. 6; unpublished translation.

Time for the Soul to Absorb the Mysteries — Part 1: From the Entrance to the Interlectional Chants

The season of Advent has always felt to me as if it is, and should be, a time of quiet meditation. Moving in a direction contrary to that of secular society in its frenzied rush towards Christmas exhaustion, a Catholic ought to be able to push away the distractions and focus on preparing inwardly for the mystery of the coming of Christ — the One who has come into the world as Savior, the One who will come at the end of time as Judge, the One who comes into my soul by His grace. And the sacred liturgy, it seems to me, ought to help us to be still, to be receptive, to be attuned to His voice. Ideally, it should immerse us in an expectant silence from which true and redemptive joy can proceed.

As the liturgy developed historically and its ritual and aesthetic elements became more fully developed, it seems that the Christian clergy and people followed an unerring instinct towards the creation of prayers, chants, and ceremonies that allow TIME for the soul to absorb the meaning of what is happening.

This psychological-spiritual opening up of space and time for the soul’s growth is accomplished in many ways in different rites or rituals. It is done through repetitious prayers, as in the Byzantine litanies, many of them redundant, though always eloquently worded; it is done through periods of silence in between periods of proclamation; it is done through motions, processions, non-verbal actions; it is done most of all through meditative chants that do not seem to be in any hurry to be finished, and which allow the mind a certain holy leisure or rest. There are repetitions, gaps, spaces, pauses, and visual signs that do not demand of the mind the constant tackling of new ideas or concepts, but permit it to dwell or linger somewhere before moving on.

The liturgy is like a winding path up a steep mountain, with open ledges on which one can rest before continuing. In this way, it emulates the spiral motion, the combination of the straight and the circular, that Pseudo-Dionysius envisages as the soul’s path into God. There is a forward progression, yes, but it takes its time winding around, in order to move up at a human pace. Attempting to go straight up or straight in would defeat us.

The classical Roman Rite of Mass, particularly in the form of the High Mass or Solemn Mass, admirably displays the spiritual pedagogy of the spiral motion, the frequent ledges, the moments of prayerful repose before continuing on with our climb up Mount Calvary, Mount Tabor, Mount Sion. In contrast, the Novus Ordo is designed in a manner contrary to this spiritual pedagogy, and thwarts the soul’s ascent up the holy mountain.

The Processions

Traditional liturgical rites of East and West are fertile in processions. We are pilgrims and we act out our condition. A town, the grounds of a church, the church building inside, offer a symbolic geography to be covered and converted as we move from point to point. The time it takes for a leisurely procession is one of the most important “burnt offerings” we can raise up, since our time is, in a way, our life and energy.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in particular, should open with a stately, unrushed procession of splendidly vested ministers towards the sanctuary, accompanied by grand music (instrumental or choral or both). Those ministers represent us, and we are walking with them towards the Holy of Holies. This is a solemn and wonderful moment, with its own distinctive meaning and satisfaction. Why do we completely spoil the effect by asking people to put their noses in a hymn book? The choir or schola should be lifting up our minds to God and allowing us to experience this procession as a procession, with all our senses in act. Where the procession is well done, it becomes one of these occasions of journeying without the baggage of the nagging necessities of the workaday world.

The Prayers at the Foot of the Altar

Then we come to those marvelous preparatory prayers, which I always miss so much in any Novus Ordo Mass, where we suddenly start BANG!, without taking time to prepare well for what is to come. The traditional liturgy pauses for a breath at the end of the procession and, rather than rushing into the sanctuary, recites Psalm 42, the Confiteor (twice), and versicles and prayers expressive of the forthcoming sacrifice. We are suspended between the entrance and the commencement, the intention and the execution, and our souls can expand, adjust, collaborate, get ready to move on. It reminds me of the process whereby one’s eyes adjust themselves to the indoors when one enters a dark room from a bright sunny day outside. Our spiritual sight is accustomed to the garish day, with its obvious objects and confident navigation. At divine worship we are being drawn into the interior, the innermost, the mystery that is luminously dark, caliginously blazing, and we do not know our way. We need some time to adjust. What blessed minutes, which carry us so gently and yet so irresistibly into the sphere of the divine!

From the Introit to the Lesson

Whether we are at a Low Mass or a High Mass, one of the greatest blessings of the TLM is that, on the one hand, we are gently drawn into prayer, as if by an invisible hand nudging us forward, and, on the other hand, we are not immediately talked to and expected to talk back. We are surely participating in the unfolding drama, but we are not targeted and harried; the activity does not get bogged down in a closed circle, like a boring classroom. The liturgy seems to be going on over our heads or around us or in front of us, and we can relate to it all the more deeply because it is outside our grasp, beyond what we can access, with no possible illusions that we are the ones driving it forward. Of course we have a role to play, and this will sometimes include verbal responses; but the overall effect is one of a giant motion that we can join, if we will, that will take us somewhere our own resources could never get us. The unfailing Introit, announcing the day’s mystery, throws down a sort of spiritual gauntlet: “Friend, wherefore art thou come?” (Mt 26:50).[1] The cascading Kyries, the exultant Gloria, the richly compact Collect, the apt Lesson, invite us to come deeper and deeper into worship, putting on the mind of Christ.

The Interlectional Chants

If the preparatory prayers seal the door to the world and habituate us to the new climate of worship, and if the subsequent prayers and lesson demand of us the exercise of our spiritual capacities, it is the interlectional chants, sung in full, that have the special power to plunge us into meditation and even contemplation.[2] At other points in the Mass, multiple things can be happening at once (the peculiar perfection called “parallel liturgy”), but here, during the Gradual and Alleluia  —  or the Gradual and Tract in Lent, or the double Alleluia in Paschaltide  —  the ministers take their seats, the people are seated. A restfulness descends with the sound of the chant; time stands still. The melismatic melodies draw out lovingly, syllable by syllable, the exquisitely beloved words of God, so that we cannot rush past them, or treat them in a utilitarian way, or think of them as mechanical responses made to a dreary rehearsal of psalms. They exist in and for themselves, living monuments of God’s faithfulness and love, and we are permitted to have them on our lips, in our ears, in our hearts. They are a ladder let down from above on which we are bidden to climb up. In this way, the Lesson and all that has come before has a chance to sink in, and the soil is plowed with deep furrows for the Gospel and all that will come after.

I shall continue next week with the Offertory and the Canon of the Mass.


NOTES

[1] Interestingly, St. Benedict cites this verse in chapter 60 of his Rule when speaking about a priest who desires admission into the monastery. He says that the priest may be admitted only on condition of agreeing to abide by the entire rule, as if to say: Why are you coming here, unless to embrace and benefit from the monastic discipline? The liturgy, too, is something we should approach only if we are ready to embrace its discipline, which is the only way to obtain its benefits.

[2] I am indebted to Dr. William Mahrt for opening my eyes and ears to the theological and liturgical significance of the interlectional chants (Gradual, Tract, Alleluia). They are the contemplative and musical high-point of the Gregorian Mass prior to the consecration.

Death by Dullness: Prioritizing Speech over Silence and Song

A friend and I were talking recently about the difference between sight in the liturgy and sound. If a liturgy looks silly, as it invariably does when the priest is facing the people but addressing God, one can always close one’s eyes and retreat into the interior castle (or at least make the attempt). But if there is endless blather and/or loud muzak, one cannot close one’s ears — and it would be rude to plug them with one’s fingers or reach for the wax earplugs. Put simply, the sound of the liturgy is more unavoidable and more determinative than the sight of it.

The modern liturgy is pretty much designed to be a non-stop talkie from start to finish. Either the priest is talking or the lectors are talking or the people are making responses or songs are being sung. There is nary a moment to absorb what has been uttered, to reflect on what has been sung, or to prepare for the next step, whatever it might be. One feels like the unfortunate pupil of an overbearing governess who never stops lecturing him about how he must tie his shoes, wash his face, do his long division, and write in his copybook with a regular cursive.

Let us face it: a recited vernacular Mass, with the priest going on and on and on in a rambling monotone, can have a soul-deadening effect. Because everything is said aloud and facing the people, it is the opposite of a traditional Low Mass, which is said quietly and facing the Lord. Because there is so little singing and so little silence, it is also the opposite of a traditional High Mass. At the Novus Ordo Neither-High-Nor-Low Mass, one drowns in an ocean of dull verbiage. No wonder the Church is dying: how could it survive such waves of boredom, worse in their own way than any iconoclasm?

Young Catholics who are serious about their faith crave the silence and spaciousness of the traditional liturgy, the way it moves slowly, breathes, opens out, respects and demands one’s own prayer, made in one’s own way and at one’s own pace. It is so liberating to attend a Mass where the focus is somewhere else, beyond, and you catch up as you can, without being addressed or cajoled. It is merciful to our weaknesses and yet plays to our strengths.

Priests, dear priests who must celebrate the Ordinary Form: please, please do everything you can to avoid this death by verbosity! Pray the Roman Canon sotto voce, so that it is just barely audible and preserves its dignity, rather than being announced like the daily news so that it loses its sacrality. Make sure you are chanting as much of the Mass as you can, and that a choir or schola is chanting the Ordinary and the Propers. Make sure there is silence. Only in these ways can the Ordinary Form avoid being a form of torture to the ears of body and soul.

* * *

With fifty years of sonic saturation behind us, we can appreciate far better the age-old wisdom of Holy Mother Church, who bid that her High Mass be sung from start to finish and her Low Mass be as quiet as a whisper.[1] In a solemn Mass or a Missa cantata, almost everything is either chanted or done in silence; only the Confiteor before Communion (if there is one) and the “Domine, non sum dignus” are spoken. This means about 99% of the liturgy’s audible words are chanted. In a Low Mass or a Missa recitata, everything is spoken by the celebrant sotto voce or silently, so that it is perfectly obvious to worshipers that the priest is speaking intimately to the Lord, not addressing a message to them. As a result, it is far easier for the laity themselves to pray — they are borne along the river of prayer that flows from the priest’s lips. Thus, tradition presents us with the marvelous spectacle of two forms of worship, one of which alternates ecstatically between song and silence, while the other is absorbed in a colloquy of love that dares not profane itself with the voice of everyday speech. Both are admirably suited to foster prayer: the prayer of the community, the prayer of contemplation, the prayer of the heart.

With the Novus Ordo, all this has been banished. Where have the chanted propers, the chanted Ordinary, the chanted priestly prayers, gone? Where has the profound silence gone? In a typical weekday celebration, 95% of the liturgy is spoken out loud, towards the people as an audience. It is talk, talk, talk, a wearisome march through texts that are not even particularly notable for their literary qualities (unlike, in this respect, the Anglican Ordinariate liturgy, which is free to draw upon some of the best English prose ever put on paper). No wonder it has so little impact on the soul: it neither creates the space required for assimilation nor exults and woos with the song of the divine lover. It is, as it were, neither cold nor hot, neither speechless nor lyrical; it is lukewarm — and we know what happens to the lukewarm.

Song is the realm of the lover, the mourner, and the bacchante, of heightened experience, of exultation and nobility, of beauty finding its voice. Silence is the realm of mystics in the grip of ineffability, genius concentrating on a problem, poets reminiscing and reaching for a word, the simple man confronted with realities vastly greater than himself, like love and death. Speech, for its part, is the realm of the ordinary, the matter-of-fact, the realm of commerce and politics. This is why both sung liturgy and silent liturgy are glorious, effective, and rich, each in its own way, while spoken liturgy is pale, feeble, and impoverished, a failure off the blocks. We are looking at a phenomenological difference that goes to the very heart of worship — what we are doing, towards whom, by whom, and why.

There are ironclad laws of psychology that warn us against the naïve belief that our theories correspond to reality, and never is this more true than in the transition from liturgical theory to contemporary praxis. The Novus Ordo era has witnessed gigantic scholarly defenses that sprawl across many volumes of text, but none of this matters in the least for the actual experience of worship. No matter how many books of theory are written, the fundamental mode of a liturgy conveys a message more obvious than any explanation. The person who enters a church and is caught up in the music and ceremonial of a High Mass or challenged to silent prayer by a Low Mass, both of which are obviously directed away from him towards the numinous Other, is experiencing divine worship, pure and simple. The person who enters a church and is literally confronted by a speaker emitting copious quantities of speech is experiencing a self-help seminar, regardless of whom the text is addressed to.

We can recognize here the prescience of Marshall McLuhan, who, intuiting that the medium somehow is the message, knew that bringing microphones and speakers into churches could have no other effect than to undermine the liturgy. The medium of the Mass is its first and abiding message to the faithful, within which everything else finds its place, acquires its color or tone. Liturgical song ennobles all that it touches, turning the wood of words into the gold of glory. Silence endows all that it envelopes with a spirit of tranquility and a transcendence of orientation that allows words to keep their primordial freshness, as if they were coins never worn by constant handling. Of the three sisters, speech is the mode that risks profanation and buffoonery. Is it not famously awkward to speak at the most terrifying or wondrous moments, in an intimate embrace before or after a long parting, in a time of excruciating crisis, insoluble anguish, or unexpected victory, when one is face to face with the inscrutable, the inexorable, the immeasurable? Speech can do nothing in these situations except make a fool of itself or bring discredit to its subject. Far better to sink into silence or find a music that, with uncanny modulations, goes beyond the realm of speech into that which is intuited, felt, or mused on. This is just what traditional liturgy does: it sinks gratefully and calmly into silence, or it finds a chant that conveys the inner “visage” of the words in a manner subtle and penetrating.

The most perfect exemplification of this dialectic of music and silence is the traditional Solemn High Mass, of which the Missa cantata is an echo. The new liturgical movement should be striving for nothing less than a Solemn High Mass every Sunday in every parish. I realize that this goal is far, very far away, but it must be our goal.

Priests who know neither the peace of the Low Mass nor the glory of the High Mass[2]: what are you waiting for? Learn to celebrate the Low Mass, and after that, learn the Missa cantata so that you can introduce it to your people! Catholics are starving for real liturgy — liturgy in which the silences and the music make integral sense, rather than seeming like random add-ons supplied by aging hippies or unguided volunteers. Speech has been bossing around her sisters far too long. It is time for liturgical silence and liturgical song to take their proper places in the life of the Church, for the life of the world.


NOTES

[1] A reader may wonder what I think about the Dialogue Mass, the question that divides father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, etc. I think there is a peculiar beauty and power in a Low Mass that is whispered by the priest at the side altar early in the morning, and that this should never disappear from the life of the Church. I have also seen the Dialogue Mass work well in a situation where there is a congregation conversant with the Latin responses and eager to make them with the servers. Even in a Dialogue Mass there is plenty of silence; it does not (or at least need not) lose the prayerfulness characteristic of this classical liturgy. It seems to me that a dogmatic position for or against the Dialogue Mass is something that should be avoided like the plague.

[2] See my article "The Problem of the Dominant Low Mass and the Rare High Mass."