Thursday, August 02, 2007

I've been trying to say Mass: pars secunda


Actually when one begins to understand the "flow" of the rite it isn't quite as illogical, rubrics wise, as one might think.
I am surprised how easily my schoolboy Latin returns. Collects can be simple or like The Times soduku, so good to fend off dementia.
What surprises me most is the awesomeness -English rather American usage. I don't want to be misunderstood here but it reflects my Eucharistic theology, more than the Ordinary rite, which I love, it has given meaning to my life for over thirty-five years. I mean I do want to genuflect all the time in the presence of Lord, I do want to bow my head to the crucifix, bend my neck at the Holy Name - supposed to do that in the New of course, I want to make endless signs of the cross, to sanctify and be sanctified. I want to say the words and do the actions that priests of the Catholic Church have been doing for 1,500 years. I want what formed Becket, Moore, Fisher, Campion, Newman and that vast company of saints. I know the Mass is the Mass is the Mass, but it is those the "cultural" things, yes the bowing, the psalm verses, the timeless piety of it all.
Someone in the comments on the previous post warned of the danger of DIY-ing it, that is why some of us are getting together for our “Summer School”. I think I will have a few “dry masses” with a rubrically minded priest as well, I would like to say it in public, but my real intention is to understand it, to make it part of my experience.

When I was under instruction as a convert I had great difficulty with the Real Presence, it was obviously crucial to the Catholic understanding of God, I really felt it was impossible to believe it and therefore to become a Catholic. The thing that changed my disbelief was going to Benediction, still celebrated then in the traditional way, it was the ceremonies, the words of the hymns and prayers, the kneeling congregation, the bowing and genuflecting, the incense, the chant, the candles; and the absolute sloppiness of it all. The grimy cope and decaying veil, the yawning servers, the battered monstrance and the man who had obviously had too much Guinness at lunchtime kneeling in front of me, it all spoke so powerfully of the Word having become Man and dwelling amongst us, and man being caught up in that mystery. And now no longer a youth in my early twenties, when I celebrate that rite, according to the proper rubrics in the ancient tongue I loose my self in it. Priests who celebrate the older usage seem to describe the same sought of thing, they experience a loss self and encounter God, I think this is the importance of detailed rubrics, they are in themselves a method of praying, of transcending self, yes, of loosing self and finding God, like all "methods" of prayer, it is what they lead to that matters, not the feelings. I used to find the same when singing the office in choir, using the ancient chants of the Church, they too, I mean the music, as well as the psalmody, are a significant part of our ancient prayer tradition. It is the timelessness of it: the rubrics and the Latin.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful post, Father. The bit about losing yourself in the Mass, in the timelessness of it was particularly evocative for me, Father. Thank you again.

gemoftheocean said...

Well, now here we are entirely on the same page. I love Benediction. Latin or English -- it's all terrific.

Karen H. -- San Diego, Ca.

Anonymous said...

'Timeless piety' so well put, Father! many years ago a Jewish friend asked whether he could accompany me to Mass.This he did and he stayed on afterwards for Benediction. When we came out his comments were that he could not understand the Mass at all but he loved the Benediction service. I don't know whether he ever persued his curiosity but this was proof that the externals are important and can leave deep impressions on people searching for the truth.

Anonymous said...

Father, would you send your post to our diocesan newspaper, I think it might be very helpful. Rubrics are, after all, our friends....

Anonymous said...

Great post Father. Losing yourself in the Mass is also how the faithful experience it too.

It is great to see you so dedicated. My priest shows complete disregard (except for deference due to himself) for tradition and he is much younger. Oh! for a swap. I think I have fallen into the sin of priest envy!
Keep up your good work.
God Bless

Andrew said...

Good luck in your quest to learn the old use and thanks for sharing your journey with us. Hopefully, it's all be finely honed come Sept 14th =)

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Fr Ray Blake said...

gd,
thankyou, steps have been taken!

Dr. Peter H. Wright said...

Thank you, Father, for the post : "learning the Mass, pars secunda".
What you have written is deeply moving.
Again, I have to say it is very generous of you to share your experiences with other people.
Yes, it is the timeless piety of it all : I couldn't improve on that thought.
I was so pleased to read the words : "one begins to understand the "flow" of the rite".
Splendid ! In that case, you've cracked it, so to speak.
The bows, crossings and genuflections can now be seen and understood as part of the "flow".
The priest thus becomes immersed in the prayers and actions of his Mass.
It's good to know that a number of priests are involved in your "summer school".
If they have the same enthusiasm and motivation as you, they will do very well.
As for fending off dementia, that question won't arise in your case for a very geat number of years ... Still, there's no harm in thinking about the future.
When I was a young man, I never gave a thought to becoming middle-aged, and now that I am, I can't understand where all those years went to.
Many thanks for an inspiring post.
Might there be pars tertia ?

Anonymous said...

Beautiful post, Father.

Anonymous said...

The good thing about Benediction being so untrendy is that it is generally done without ay creativity - no-one who would want to update it bothers doing it!

Nothing like "tantum ergo" in a thick West Lothian accent (tantuem errgoe sacrramentuem...)

Anonymous said...

This is very similar to the reasons why I became drawn to the traditional liturgy. As a convert I struggled with the Real Presence. In the RCIA it wasn't touched on at all (and neither was sin, salvation, Our Lady, Confession, and most orthodox Catholic doctrine) and I didn't really think too much about it. But when I was received into the Church last Easter Vigil and received Communion I got a shock when I realised that I didn't really believe that I was receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. I just felt I was receiving a small, flat wafer - and nothing more.

For the next few months I really struggled with this. Before every Communion I prayed for light - to understand. To be honest, I found going to Mass more and more of a struggle: I cringed at the saccharine songs that were sung at most Masses I attended and felt generally disheartened by how mundane everything was, especially standing in the line for Communion.

I had heard about the "Latin Mass" a few times as the parish priest spoke disparagingly of it (he also said that he refused to give people Communion on their knees and would wait for them to stand up). I finally decided to go the "indult" Mass in Edinburgh, mostly out of curiosity but almost with a feeling of guilt for going behind the parish priest's back.

It's difficult to describe everything that I felt when Mass started. I really felt that this is what I had been looking for when I had come into the Church. When I received Communion - kneeling and on the tongue - I felt a "rightness" that I had never felt in all of the Masses that I had attended before. Afterwards there was Benediction in the traditional rite. And then the Real Presence made sense to me. I had the briefest glimpse of something - and then it was gone. But ever since then I haven't struggled in quite the same way with the Real Presence.

In retrospect, I believe that my struggle with the Real Presence wasn't a purely individual struggle - but also, in a sense, the Church's struggle at the present time. If the priest and the people don't treat the Host with any great reverence then it is much harder to believe that the Body and Blood of Christ is present under the appearance of bread and wine. Lex ordandi, lex credendi. In a way, to have faith that a little wafer is in substance Christ's Body and Blood is not easy in itself. But it's much so much harder when the Host is handled in a way that belies its true substance.

Well, after this what I call my "Tridentine troubles" started. When I told other Catholics about my experience of the traditional rite of Mass they looked at me as if I were either mad or some kind of crypto-schismatic. I tried to speak to a number of priests about it as I felt quite distressed that by my discovery of the "Latin Mass" I had effectively put myself on the periphery of the Church. The general consensus seemed to be that people who went to the "Latin Mass" were either very old and were unable to cope with the liturgical reform or that they had some kind of emotional defect ("it's for troubled people" was one opinion from a priest I heard). To be honest, it was quite a dispiriting experience. As a newcomer into the Church it seemed as if there was some kind of mass-neurosis going on: there were some things that were 'never to be spoken of'.

Thank God for Pope Bendict XVI and Summarum Pontificum. A lot has changed (or at least begun to change) in one year!

Anonymous said...

Many good people who have read David's account of his experience of Mass as a convert and his discovery of the extraordinary rite will not only be able to resonate with it from their own experience but also be happy for him that he now feels truly at home. Praise God. But the unhappy experience he found in Scotland with clerical attitudes to the rite points to a harsh reality that is likely to be replicated all over the United Kingdom. The majority of priests hold the same position and that is why it is going to take years, perhaps decades, for the extraordinary rite to find a natural place in parish life.

To offset the stultification of Summorum Pontificum as a practical reality I hope that Article 10 will be invoked by bishops and parishes erected for particular geographical areas which could cater to those living within that area desiring the extraordinary rite. Equally priests could be appointed who would be responsible for the celebration of the rite within the dioceses. This would help to make the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter and the Institute of Christ the King a natural part of UK diocesan life, assuming that they have enough priests to make this possible. Should this happen a great financial sacrifice will be demanded from those who support such parishes.

Remember, too, that for the majority of Catholics in these islands the extraordinary rite is an unknown rite and many priests will work hard to make sure that it remains so. For traditionalists who think that, by a stroke of the pen, the last forty years have been eliminated and life will return to what it was at the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958 there are bound to be disappointments. We are only at the start of the return of the extraordinary rite as part of the everyday life of the Church. The current clerical and lay mentality, summed up by David's unhappy experience of the RCIA, will do everything possible to turn Summorum Pontificum into a false dawn.

Anonymous said...

Dear Father,

I taught myself to celebrate the Traditional form of the Mass during my last year at the Venerable English College, using a layfolks hand Missal, a teacup and a saucer. When I finally celebrated my first Mass using the 1962 Missal, my assistant priest ( a very venerable and respected cleric)could only spot one minor fault in my execution of the rubrics. I mention this just to show that the 'DIY' approach can be effective. Keep up the practice - you'll never, ever regret taking the trouble to learn.

Anonymous said...

Father - thank you so much for these posts, for taking the trouble to teach yourself the Extraordinary Rite and for your willingness to embrace so publicly what the Holy Father teaches.

I am not at all surprised that your difficulties over the Real Presence were overcome as a result of going to Benediction. There are so many people who can tell a similar tale: even cradle Catholics like myself can resonate with the power and beauty of Benediction.

gemoftheocean said...

Dear David, thank you for telling us about your conversion. I am so glad you found Benediction. I don't know from your story if you had heard about it beforehand, or it was a pleasant surprise. I am extremely surprised to hear about your RCIA [lack of] preparation, in the important aspects of Catholic faith which you pointed out were not covered. It's like hiding the truth to someone, and another person might have easily felt they were somehow "tricked" and have fallen away from the church rapidly.

For me, John 6 - has always been the core of the belief in the real presence. 3 times Jesus is asked if it is really His Flesh and Blood. Each time He answers more firmly and concretely so it is understood that yes, that is what He really means. You might find it very fruitful to take a copy of John 6 with you and make a little visit to church (when there are no services and just sit in front of the tabernacle and read John 6) Is there a church near you with perpetual hours of adoration, so you can just stop by now and again?
And yes, Benediction is wonderful.

"Little visits to church" were something my mom [dad was not yet a Catholic] inculcated with me as part of daily/weekly life. It was something we did as a matter of course. We often went to 1st Fridays, rosaries, daily mass. Not every day, mind, but frequently. [There were periods of my life where I have attended daily Mass, but I don't want to give the impression, that I came from a family that was extraordinarily pious. Maybe more pious than quite a few, but what we did wasn't seen as particularly unusual. [I was born in '56. If you have children, don't be concerned about "are they old enough to understand this prayer, or this service" give things time to simmer and brew. You are learning what some of us learned when we were very little. But we had to learn it over the course of years. And you didn't have a guide, in the sense of a parental guide, like most cradle Catholics did.

My guess as to why some might be concerned about you, is that the Latin Mass, beautiful as it is, if not approached in the right spirit, could come off as attractive someone who is more concerned with the externals (i.e. the trappings and the ritual itself) than the central transubstantiation that happens. Remember, the Host you personally receive from the pope's own hands is the very same as the Host received from an EM who is assisting a priest under battlefield conditions with a minimum of externals. They may be just concerned that you are more attracted to these externals than the essence of the sacrament. [Or they could just be liberal nut jobs too. ;=D ]

Ask yourself: If someone pointed a gun to your head and commanded you to take either the consecrated Host, or a gazillion dollar Monstrance - and throw the other in the deep blue sea -- take the Host.

Don't forget the first Eucharist was simple bread and wine, just like you can receive, and the apostles all sat around a simple table.

I don't look down on the "trappings" and the ritual -- it's natural for man to want to set our Lord in the most precious of jewels and gold, to turn artisans hands to crafting anything from a pyx to a cathedral to house the Almighty. But don' forget the most important resting place should be making our very selves a fit tabernacle for the Lord. Try and treat your physical body as a temple, because it will be a temporary resting place for the Lord. That's why we shouldn't mistreat our bodies deliberately. [Cellulite is another matter, Lord, but you gave me these genetics!]

BTW, it's very natural for "water to seek it's own level." One person may feel comfortable with more simplicity, some find it easier to feel more at peace in trappings that remind them of what they imagine heaven to be like (The Byzantines do this with literal bells on.) I can't stand either kumbaya stuff -- and the mantilla crowd (no offense mulier=fortis, but it's not my style) can put me at edge (because you would have to point a gun at my head, and I still wouldn't wear one) - personally I seek "middle of the road" "nice." The Latin doesn't bother me, but I'd hate to have to haul a missal to church every week and study the changeable parts of it, so I could understand it in real time. I'd feel a piker, personally, if I didn't do the "homework" that that would entail.

[My theory is that if you're going to a Latin Mass - you ought to bother learning what is said, other wise you may as well sit there singing "supercalifragilisticex-
pealidocious." And I have to say the priest's back to me drove me nuts as a small child. Even a "front row" kid like me, STILL wasn't satisfied. But to each his own. I don't get upset by people who do go for one extreme or the other -- as long as we all have the same faith in the Real Presence.

Karen H. -- San Diego, Ca.

Anonymous said...

Karen of San Diego - 'the mantilla crowd' and 'haul a missal' I felt sad reading this. As a 'new' Catholic 42 years ago I took pride in carrying my missal and mantilla to Mass and was not afraid to show my faith in this way. I still have my cherished missal dated 1963 - will this be the same as the 1962 version I wonder?

Anonymous said...

Karen H,
To be honest, I've started skipping over your comments as I find them singularly unhelpful.

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