Here is the script for a presentation given by me at a liturgical ministers’ conference in the diocese of Beaumont, Texas on October 22nd.
Every time I come to Beaumont, I remember the story of the guy from Boston who had finally had it with the snow, so he decided to move to West Texas. His idea of Texas, however, was born of watching old John Wayne movies.
So, he decided he needed to get himself a horse. But he didn’t have much money left. It’s expensive moving all the way across the country. So he went to an old used horse dealer at the edge of the desert, who had an old horse (with not too many miles on it) that used to belong to a now extinct Indian tribe. The only problem was that the horse did not understand English, but only this ancient Indian dialect.
You see in order to get the horse to go you said WOW. And in order to get it to go faster, you said WOW WOW. And in order to get it to go really fast you said WOW WOW WOW. And in order to get it to stop, you said AMEN (it’s last owner was a Catholic).
So, he gets up on the horse and he says WOW. And the horse starts moving. So, he says WOW WOW, and the horse starts galloping. So, he goes for broke and says WOW WOW WOW. And the horse is going lickety-split through the desert, and he’s going faster and faster.
Until, in the distance, he can see a cliff. So he says STOP! WOUGH! ALT! And nothing seems to work, and he’s getting closer and closest tot he cliff, until he finally yells AMEN! And he’s two inches from the edge of the cliff and it’s four miles down and he says, WOW!
Wow! What a powerful word.
But let’s try an even more powerful word, perhaps one of the most powerful words ever spoken:
Memory.
For it is the word which was used by the Lord Jesus, the night before he died for us, commanding us to:
Do this in Memory of Me.
Which is why we go to Mass, or more precisely, why we celebrate the Eucharist as the source and summit of our lives.
When, sixty years ago, the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council published the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, they called for a renewal of the Mass that would embrace one goal before all others: the “full, conscious, and active participation” of the faithful.
Now, this participation wasn’t really a new idea at all, for the last several Popes before the Council were all preoccupied with engaging people in the and discouraging a purely passive experience of “hearing Mass, whereby the laity “payed prayed and obeyed” sitting there as “outsiders or onlookers.’"1 watching the ordained clergy perform all their sacred functions.
The Popes of the early twentieth century were suggesting, in fact, is that Jesus’ command to “Do this in memory of me” was addressed not just to the Clergy, but to the Baptized, as well.
Thus did Pope Pius XII issue a stirring call in his landmark Encyclical letter, Mediator Dei:
So that the faithful take a more active part in divine worship, . . . it is very necessary that they attend the sacred ceremonies not as if they were outsiders or mute onlookers, but let them fully appreciate the beauty of the liturgy and take part in the sacred ceremonies, alternating their voices with the priest and the choir, according to the prescribed norms. If, please God, this is done, it will not happen that the congregation hardly ever or only in a low murmur answer the prayers in Latin or in the vernacular.
''A congregation,"Pope Pius XII wrote, "that is devoutly present at the sacrifice, in which our Savior together with His children redeemed with His sacred blood sings the nuptial hymn of His immense love, cannot keep silent, for 'song befits the lover.’"
This is the solid foundation upon which the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council built the liturgical renewal that we have experienced in our lifetimes. And this participation is both a duty and a right of every individual by consequence of our Baptism. For it is in Baptism we are made members of the People of God, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people. This text from 1 Peter 2:9 is read to the newly baptized on Easter Saturday.
Participation in the Liturgy, then, is something far more important than the distribution of functions and roles, but is a fundamental disposition that flows into a whole way of life; those who take an active part in the Liturgy are transformed by it and go out from the liturgical assembly conscious of who they are and who they are called to be.
The Sacrifice of the Heart
Working from the Church's ancient understanding of Baptism, whereby those who are baptized into Christ are thereby called to his table as his children, entitled to eat and drink with the family of the Lord, the Council Fathers insisted that the purpose of life of the Baptized is nothing less than participation in the Sacrifice of Christ himself.
Echoing Augustine, the Council Father taught us that the Liturgy is nothing less than our own sacrifice, by reason of our Baptism. In effect, all who are baptized are made priests, able to offer themselves “as a living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable to God.” (Romans 12:1)
Neither in Judaism nor in the ancient world, was this kind of self-offering as a "living sacrifice" ever before heard of. Like Christ, however, each Christian baptized into his Death and Resurrection is called to make of his life a living sacrifice of praise.
The priesthood of the faithful, then, is made manifest in the work of offering sacrifice—not the bloody sacrifice of bulls or sheep, but the sacrifice of our lives. To quote the Conciliar decree Presbyterorum ordinis, “….priests [then] must instruct their people to offer to God the Father the Divine Victim in the Sacrifice of the Mass, and to join to it the offering of their own lives.” (Presbyterorum ordinis, no. 5.)
When Pope Benedict XVI was preparing his post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Synod on the Eucharist, many were surprised when he chose to comment on what seems to us to be a fairly ordinary part of the Mass, the Presentation of the Gifts. Yet, he pointed our there is great significance in this actions for who we are at Mass and what we are called to be.
“This humble and simple gesture is actually very significant,” he wrote, for “in the bread and wine that we bring to the altar, all creation is taken up by Christ the Redeemer to be transformed and presented to the Father. In this way we also bring to the altar all the pain and suffering of the world, in the certainty that everything has value in God's eyes.” (Sacramentum Caritatis, no. 47)
Indeed, in the Presentation of the gifts it becomes evident a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, are joining the sacrifices of their lives with the one and perfect sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. When gifts of bread and wine are placed into the hands of the Priest, it is not just bread that is offered, but with those pieces of bread are mixed all the sacrifices of our lives. And with the wine in that cruet are mixed the joys and sorrows, the longings and holy desires of each member of the gathered assembly.
We place those gifts into the hands of the Priest, offering them to Christ. Then the Priest, acting in the person of Christ, places those gifts upon the altar in the same way that Christ placed his body upon the altar of the Cross in a perfect sacrifice of praise. These are the gifts that will be transformed by the great Eucharistic Prayer into the very Body and Blood of Christ, and then returned to us as our nourishment that we might have the strength to continue to join ourselves with Christ's sacrifice every day of our lives.
The French poet Paul Claudel6 once wrote of this moment: “Your prayers, and your faith, and your blood, with His in the chalice. These, like the water and wine, form the matter of his sacrifice.”
And this participation, this offering of the sacrifice of our lives, is not something we do alone. Rather we do it in communion with the whole Church, as people bring their sacrifices to Altars from Boston to Beaumont, all joined by the same Altar, the same Christ and the same perfect Sacrifice of Praise.
Back in the 1950’s, at the Assisi Liturgical Conference, Cardinal Suhard put it best:
"Therefore when you approach the altar, never come alone. Together with yourselves, you have the power and the mission to save your home, your street, your city, and the whole of civilization. . . . The worker will offer up the monotony of assembly-line work or the joy of skilled craftsmanship. The mother of a family will offer up her household cares, her fears for a sick child. The man of science will offer up the world of ideas, the universe whose depth and breadth have been tapped. It is the task of the scholar, the philosopher, the sociologist, the artist, at this turning point in the world’s history, to gather the world together in order to raise it up to the Father.”
That is what the priest means when he says: “Pray brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father.” My sacrifice…the sacrifice of Christ which I was ordained to offer with and for you, and your sacrifices (in the plural!). All offered on that Altar and joined to the perfect sacrifice of Christ.
Participation from the Inside Out
Our Participation in the Liturgy is not, therefore, just what we see on the outside: standing, kneeling, responding and singing. Our Participation in the liturgy is from the inside out.
Thus, our demands that we be prepared "with the dispositions of a suitable heart and mind. What [we] think and feel must be at one with what they say; they must do their part in the working of grace that comes from above if they are not to have received it in vain."
This is one boat, I fear, that the Church has too often missed. For while we have spent much time arranging furniture and books and telling people where to stand and what to do, we have not spent enough time or energy moving souls and hearts and people to be more like Christ, so that they might be joined with him in the great sacrifice of praise that is the Liturgy.
A great example of this relationship between the internal and external at the Liturgy is found in what the Roman Missal tells us about the posture of the faithful at Mass.
’'A common posture, to be observed by all participants, is a sign of the unity of the members of the Christian community gathered for the sacred Liturgy: it both expresses and fosters the intention and spiritual attitude of the participants.”6
External liturgical action, then, grows from an internal intention. Common liturgical action strengthens that internal or spiritual attitude and is motivated by our common conviction that we are not gathered as strangers or individuals, but as a priestly people, called and made one with Christ on his great sacrifice of praise. Such common external action in turn strengthens our internal, foundational unity in Christ, who is the source of all unity and praise.
Another great example of participation in the Liturgy starting from the heart is found in an extended theological description of who the Priest is at Mass. Perhaps more strongly than any other postconciliar description of the Priest, the new Roman Missal speaks of the primacy of the internal and its determinative role on external participation in the liturgical action:
When he celebrates the Eucharist, therefore, he must serve God and the people with dignity and humility, and by his bearing and by the way he says the divine words he must convey to the faithful the living presence of Christ.’
Here we find an exquisite description of what it means to minister in persona Christi. Not just by what he says, not just by where he moves and what he does should the Priest seek to show forth Christ to the gathered liturgical assembly. No. The new Missal proclaims that by the way he speaks and by the way he moves the Priest must convey, in dignity and humility, a living sense of the presence of Christ in the Liturgy.
Such participation is informed, internal, and profound. It demands that the person who distributes the Holy Eucharist does so with a full appreciation of not only how to present the Body of Christ for the nourishment of his holy people, but with a deep consciousness of who this priestly people is and with a clear focus on the overwhelming mystery of how Christ, present in the consecrated host, is held before the eyes of each communicant.
It means that lectors who proclaim at the conclusion of each reading that what we have heard is "The word of the Lord,"truly believe that God has used their tongues to speak his words to a people whom he has loved unto death.
It means that each person is profoundly focused not on the external bow, response, or gesture the Liturgy demands of them, but on the ways in which that liturgical action joins them to the Church and to their neighbor and, indeed, to Christ in his Paschal Sacrifice.
Thus, the first and most essential level of our participation in the Liturgy and in the Church is our participation in Christ's Paschal Death and rising on so intimate a level, that we become the mysteries we celebrate; we are transformed into the image of him whose Body and Blood we eat and drink.
A full participation in such a mystery means a full donation of self. A conscious participation in such a mystery means a conscious dying to my own will and a rebirth to God's will for me. An active participation in such mysteries means that I actively let go of everything I have and embrace only the obedient and active love of Christ who now lives in me. This is a great wonder that we proclaim and believe.
It's a wonder that Pope Paul VI understood in 1966 when he proclaimed:
The Council has taken the fundamental position that the faithful have to understand what the priest is saying and to share in the liturgy; to be not just passive spectators at Mass but souls alive; to the people of God responsive to him and forming a community gathered as one around the celebrant.
Look at the altar, placed now for dialogue with the assembly ... The repository has been opened up, as the people's own spoken language now becomes part of their prayer. Lips that had once been still, sealed as it were, now at last begin to move, as the whole assembly can speak its part in the dialogue with the priest ... No longer do we have the sad phenomenon of people being conversant and vocal about every human subject yet silent and apathetic in the house of God,. How sublime it is to hear during Mass the communal recitation of the Our Father!
Be then, fervent at the Sunday Mass; hold on to it jealously; endeavor to fill every corner of your parish church, to be part of a host of people surrounding the altar. Say to your priests: make us understand; open the book to us. And learn to sing. A Mass celebrated with the song of the people makes for the full raising up of the spirit. Saint Ambrose-one of the first bishops to introduce sacred singing into the Christian community expressed this striking thought; when I hear an entire assembly sing Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God my spirit is flooded with happiness; nothing in the world can possess such grandeur and majesty. 10 God has begun this great work in us! Imagine, he chose us! In the sacrifice of Christ Jesus his Son, may he bring it to a good conclusion.
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Monsignor Moroney's latest book, The Mass Explained, is available from Catholic Book Publishing at https://catholicbookpublishing.com/product/303
