Serratelli on Liturgy, Part III

Here is another installment of Paterson, New Jersey Bishop Arthur Serratelli's thoughts on liturgy.. cogent, to the point, pastoral. Find other columns here.

The Sacredness of Life and the Real Presence

According to recent statistics, over one billion people use the Internet. The Internet grew out of a government experiment. In the 1960’s, the U.S. Department of Defense wanted to create a computer network that would continue to function in the event of a disaster, such as a nuclear war. Their work gave birth to the Internet. And the result has been explosive.

The Internet has changed the way we live, not just locally, but globally. Information, business, travel, and personal communication are no longer the same. People can shop on line for anything from books to baked goods. Hassling other bargain hunters in crowded stores, standing in line to purchase sports tickets or theater tickets, and browsing through a library are all rapidly receding into the past. Even banking is conducted on line.

Today many people sit in front of their computer. They live in a virtual world. They fade out of the real world. Because of modern technology, they can watch movies without ever going to a cinema. They can listen to music all alone on their iPod.

Technology that connects us also disconnects. We too easily forgo the many opportunities simply to be with other people. We lose the human touch. Surrounded by things, we become lonely. Perhaps this is part of the reason instant messaging, chat rooms, cell phones are so popular. We are a people constantly reaching out to stay connected. We need a sense of personal presence. And the deepest longing that we have for personal presence is fulfilled in the Eucharist.

The Eucharist as meal; the Eucharist as Sacrifice; the Eucharist as eschatological anticipation: all these dimensions of the Eucharist come together in the Real Presence. Theodore of Mopsuestia (350-428 A.D.) gives witness to the consistent faith of the Church in the Real Presence. He says, "The Lord did not say: This is a symbol of my body, and this is a symbol of my blood, but rather: This is my body and my blood. He teaches us not to look to the nature of what lies before us and is perceived by the senses, because the giving of thanks and the words spoken over it have changed it into flesh and blood" ( Epistle to Magnus, 6).

It is the reality of the Lord’s Presence that takes the Eucharist out of the category of mere symbolism and makes the Eucharist the Mystery of Divine Presence. Not only while Mass is celebrated and the Sacrifice is offered, not only when Holy Communion is received, but Christ remains with us in the Eucharist reserved in our churches. He is Emmanuel, that is, "God with us."

Day after day, Jesus builds up His Church by his Eucharistic presence. As St. Paul teaches, "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (1Cor 10:17). In the mystery of the Eucharist, Jesus draws us into the communion of divine life that is the Church. He prays at every Eucharist, as he prayed at the Last Supper, "Even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me" (Jn 17:21). He makes our life sacred with the Presence of God.

It is especially in the Eucharist that we come face to face with the immeasurable treasure of divine love. Our communion with the Lord in the Eucharist through the reception of Holy Communion and through adoration is the true source of the unselfish love that transforms our personal lives and society as well.

In the Eucharist, Jesus fulfills the longing of every disciple first expressed by the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. "They pressed him to stay with them saying, ‘It is nearly evening, and the day is almost over’" (Lk 24:29). In the Eucharist, the Lord stays with us. Day and night the Lord is in our midst. He dwells with us, full of grace and truth.

"Therefore both public and private devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist even outside Mass should be vigorously promoted, for by means of it the faithful give adoration to Christ, truly and really present, the ‘High Priest of the good things to come’ and Redeemer of the whole world" (Redemptionis Sacramentum, 134). The worship of the Eucharist outside the Sacrifice of the Mass is closely linked to the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. It is not a devotion separated from the Sacrifice of the Mass, but a deepening of the very mystery of our redemption. In those parishes where there is regular adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, parish life is enriched, families are drawn together and vocations increase.

Because of the loss of the sense of the sacred in our world, we need to work at cultivating a lively awareness of Christ's Real Presence. Every parish, every Catholic, should set time aside to worship and adore our Eucharistic Lord. This is why it is most expedient that the Blessed Sacrament be reserved in every parish in a place of prominence. The placing of the tabernacle in a place clearly visible to the faithful who enter the church already draws us into that communion of love that takes places in the celebration of Mass and continues in our daily life. The arrangement of our churches should reflect our belief that the Eucharist is Jesus Christ, Crucified and Risen!

Likewise, our conduct should always reflect our faith. The reverence we show to the Blessed Sacrament by the positioning of the tabernacle in our churches, by our silence and prayer, and by the gesture of genuflection before the tabernacle—a custom lamentably lost in some places—lifts us beyond the profane into the awareness of the mystery of God among us.

Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament is an authentic expression of faith in the Eucharist. It helps us recover the sense of the sacred in the liturgy and also in life. By adoring the Most Blessed Sacrament, we come to know not simply intellectually but experientially the meaning of Jesus’ final words in Matthew’s gospel: "Behold, I am with you always, even until the end of time" (Mt 28:20). Thus, we become aware of how sacred all life truly is.

The Recovery of the Sacred

Here is the second of a three part series on worship from Bishop Arthur Seratelli of Paterson, New Jersey. It contains some helpful suggestions toward recovering the sense of the sacred in our worship. I am working on a longer post regarding Benedict XVI's motu proprio, but that's going to take some time to do.

The Recovery of the Sacred

"The Dutch historian and philosopher of religion Gerardus van der Leeuw once said, “The modern man is not capable of finding himself in several circles simultaneously as his primitive cousins did. ‘When we dance, we do not pray; when we pray, we do not dance. And when we work, we can neither dance nor pray.’” In a word, the sense of the sacred has disappeared. But not completely nor irretrievably. The Liturgy of the Church is a moment where all the dimensions of our lives come before the living God. It is the place where we have an active encounter with God. It is the place, therefore, where we can rediscover the sacred in our lives.

The Second Vatican Council began the liturgical reform with the hope of reinvigorating this sense of the Presence of God who comes to meet us in love. Two generations after the Council, we are still searching for a deeper sense of the sacred in our Liturgy. We now realize some of the ways in which this can be accomplished. It is good to look at a few of these. Certain settings demand their own particular etiquette. Dress at a wedding reception differs from dress at a sports event. Conversation in a bar is louder than in a funeral home. The more we realize we are coming into the Presence of God in Church, the more respectful and reverent our whole person becomes. Chewing gum in Church, loud talking, beach attire and immodest dress simply do not belong!

In church, we need to cultivate a sense of God who is present to us. This is why we are called to observe moments of silence. Both before Mass begins and during Mass. Liturgy is much more than our joining together. It is our opening ourselves to God. By our singing and praying, we respond to the God who addresses us in Liturgy. A constant torrent of words and songs filling every empty space in the Liturgy does not leave the heart the space it needs to rest quietly in the Divine Presence.

In the Annunciation, after the angel announces to Mary that she is to be the Mother of the Lord and Mary gives her fiat, there is silence (cf. Lk 1:38). In this pregnant silence, that Word becomes flesh. Mary remains the model of the disciple before the Word of God. She reminds us that we need moments of silence for God to enter our life. We need those moments in our personal prayer and in the Liturgy.

In the Liturgy recorded in the last book of the New Testament, in the Book of Revelation, the word proskynein (to bow) is used twenty-four times -- more than in any other part of the New Testament. John, the author of the Book of Revelation, presents this heavenly Liturgy as the model and standard for the Church’s Liturgy on earth. Our body bowed in prayer acknowledges the Lord’s majesty. It visibly confesses our belonging to God who is the Lord of all. Here is a strong reminder of the place of body in Liturgy.

We are not just spirit when we pray. We pray in our total reality as body and spirit. And so, to recapture the sense of the sacred, therefore, we need to express our reverence through our body language. The norms of the Liturgy wisely have us stand in prayer at certain moments, sit in attentive listening to the readings, and kneel in reverent adoration during the solemn prayer of consecration. These norms are not arbitrary nor are they left to the discretion of any individual celebrant.

Creativity is not an authentic rule for celebrating the Church’s Liturgy. In many cases, it humanizes the Liturgy and draws attention from God to the celebrant. The priest is merely the servant of the Liturgy, not its creator or center.

Commenting on this, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, said: “The great¬ness of the Liturgy depends—we shall have to repeat this frequently—on its unspontaneity (Unbeliebigkeit)…. Only respect for the Liturgy’s fundamental unspontaneity and pre-existing identity can give us what we hope for: the feast in which the great reality comes to us that we ourselves do not manufacture but receive as a gift (Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 170). Since the Liturgy is a gift and not something of our own creation, it takes great humility to celebrate the Liturgy properly and reverently.

Observing the norms of the Liturgy helps to create a profound sense of the sacred in each of us at Mass. Celebrating Mass and observing liturgical norms also makes us visibly one with the entire Church to which we belong. “Priests who faithfully celebrate Mass according to the liturgical norms, and communities which conform to those norms, quietly but eloquently demonstrate their love for the Church” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 52).

Today it has become commonplace at the end of the Liturgy to recite a litany of gratitude for all those who, in some way or another, have made the celebration beautiful. No doubt there is a way to express gratitude at the end of Mass. But is it possible that each time applause breaks out in the Liturgy at the end of the Mass for someone’s contribution, we lapse into seeing the Mass as a human achievement? Sometimes even during the Mass after someone has sung a beautiful hymn, there is spontaneous applause. At such a moment, does not the real meaning of Liturgy lapse into some kind human entertainment?

We can recapture more and more the sense of the sacred, the more we allow the Liturgy to be what it is. A gift from God that allows God to speak and act in our life. A gift that draws us out of ourselves and out of time into the eternal life of God even now."

On the Loss of the Sacred

Here is a fine excerpt from the first part of four, penned by the Bishop of Paterson, New Jersey, Arthur Seratelli. "On the Loss of the Sacred" provides some good pointers on the continuing Reform of the Reform.

The anti-authoritarian prejudice that we have inherited from the social revolution of the '60’s imprinted on many a deep mistrust not only of government but of Church. Some even reject the very idea of hierarchy (literally, “a sacred origin”) as a spiritual authority established by God. As a result, Church means, for some, simply the assembly of like-minded believers who organize themselves and make their own rules and dogmas. Thus, the Church’s role in the spiritual realm is greatly eclipsed.

On the first day of the new millennium, Prince Charles of England said, "In an age of secularism, I hope, with all my heart, in a new millennium we will rediscover a sense of the sacred in all that surrounds us." He said he hoped this would hold true whether in growing crops, raising livestock, building homes in the countryside, treating disease or educating the young. He recognized by his statement that we have lost a sense of the sacred.

Living in our world, we breathe the toxic air that surrounds us. Even within the most sacred precincts of the Church, we witness a loss of the sense of the sacred. With the enthusiasm that followed the Second Vatican Council, there was a well-intentioned effort to make the liturgy modern. It became commonplace to say that the liturgy had to be relevant to the worshipper. Old songs were jettisoned. The guitar replaced the organ. Some priests even began to walk down the road of liturgical innovation, only to discover it was a dead end. And all the while, the awareness of entering into something sacred that has been given to us from above and draws us out of ourselves and into the mystery of God was gone.

Teaching about the Mass began to emphasize the community. The Mass was seen as a community meal. It was something everyone did together. Lost was the notion of sacrifice. Lost the awesome mystery of the Eucharist as Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The priest was no longer seen as specially consecrated. He was no different than the laity. With all of this, a profound loss of the sacred.
Not one factor can account for the decline in Mass attendance, Church marriages, baptisms and funerals in the last years. But most certainly, the loss of the sense of the sacred has had a major impact.

Walk into any church today before Mass and you will notice that the silence that should embrace those who stand in God’s House is gone. Even the Church is no longer a sacred place. Gathering for Mass sometimes becomes as noisy as gathering for any other social event. We may not have the ability to do much about the loss of the sacredness of life in the songs, videos and movies of our day. But, most assuredly, we can do much about helping one another recover the sacredness of God’s Presence in His Church.

On the first day of this millennium, the Prince of Wales struck a strong note of optimism for the recovery of the sacred. Paraphrasing Dante, he remarked: "The strongest desire of everything, and the one first implanted by nature, is to return to its source. And since God is the source of our souls and has made it alike unto Himself, therefore this soul desires above all things to return to Him." There is one place where we can begin to rediscover the sacred."