I often hear people say that the liturgy has lost its sense of reverence. This question usually precedes a critique of the Novus Ordo Missae, the Order of Mass promulgated after the Second Vatican Council.
In order to respond to this statement, I think one first must come to grips with what reverence is.
Dictionary definitions use words like respect, honor, and adore. I think most people would equate reverence with serious, sober prayer, with heads bowed and eyes cast down. It may be...sometimes.
Pope Benedict XVI began his apostolic exhortation Sacrament of Charity (2007) with these words:
The sacrament of charity, the Holy Eucharist is the gift that Jesus Christ makes of himself, thus revealing to us God’s infinite love for every man and woman. This wondrous sacrament makes manifest that “greater” love which led him to “lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). Jesus did indeed love them “to the end” (Jn 13:1). In those words the Evangelist introduces Christ’s act of immense humility: before dying for us on the Cross, he tied a towel around himself and washed the feet of his disciples. In the same way, Jesus continues, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, to love us “to the end,” even to offering us his body and his blood. What amazement must the Apostles have felt in witnessing what the Lord did and said during that Supper! What wonder must the eucharistic mystery also awaken in our own hearts!
The two last sentences speak of intense reverence--what amazement, what wonder!
Quite honestly, when I first read this paragraph I asked myself, "Do I experience wonder in the eucharistic mystery?" While I did and do (of course!), it was somewhat a cerebral experience. But was I amazed? Does the Mass provoke wonder?
Since that time I have reflected on this concept often. It is one thing to sit quietly (reverently?) and hear the readings proclaimed. It is quite another to consider this a time that Christ "Himself ... speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, no. 7); or that the Eucharist we celebrate truly makes present the Last Supper (at which Pope Benedict intuits the apostles' amazement); we're in the Garden of Gethsemane as Jesus asks the Father to take this cup of suffering from him; we're at the foot of the cross; we peer into the tomb; we're in the Upper Room. Somehow, the liturgy makes the entire Paschal Mystery present! (See Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 1085 and following).
Now that's something which amazes! That's something that makes us awestruck with wonder!
So, back to reverence. Reverence is, I think, an acknowledgment of the reality which we can't see. It is acknowledging that what looks like a wafer and red wine is, in reality, the Body and Blood of Christ and that we are incorporated into that Body and Blood. It understands that Christ is speaking to us in the liturgy, even if the reader is hard to understand; Christ is with us even when the homily is too long or the organ is too loud; Christ even is there if I don't want to be.
But that's not all. Reverence is an acknowledgment that those gathering in the Church with me have "put on Christ" in the Sacrament of Baptism and become the Body of Christ just as I do in the reception of Holy Communion. Reverence pays homage to the fact that each person is made in the image of God and is loved completely and wholly by God. Reverence adores Christ in the tabernacle and serves Christ in the street. I have quoted Pope Benedict on this before: "A Eucharist without solidarity with others is a Eucharist abused" (General Audience on December 10, 2008).
Going full circle, has the liturgy lost its sense of reverence? No!! But sometimes we do. We show this loss when were are hurried, doing things for the sake of doing them, or placing our own likes and dislikes above the Church's liturgical rites. We also betray a lack of reverence when we celebrate with hard hearts, a feeling of superiority over others, or lack of charity.
This past May, Pope Benedict said in his homily on the Body and Blood of Christ:
...let us renew this evening our faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. We must not take this faith for granted! Today we run the risk of secularization creeping into the Church too. It can be translated into formal and empty Eucharistic worship, into celebrations lacking that heartfelt participation that is expressed in veneration and in respect for the liturgy. The temptation to reduce prayer to superficial, hasty moments, letting ourselves be overpowered by earthly activities and concerns, is always strong.
Many people picked up on the "risk of secularization" as another condemnation of liturgy today. However, Benedict speaks not of the liturgy, but of us! Unless we participate in the liturgy with the eyes of faith, acknowledging the unseen realities, we run the risk of reverence becoming something we simply do in church, rather than a way of life!
Bravo! Thank you for taking on the topic of reverence. I understand your desire to protect the Novus Ordo, and I would like to see even more about how we can pray the Novus Ordo well, as in the "real" intention of the Fathers of Vatican II. I know this to be a kind of pet project for our Holy Father as he speaks of the unintended "rupture" between the past and present which occured in the years following the council. How does the Hermeneutic of Continuity speak to the ways we need to approach the Novus Ordo? Is this a new, yet very old lens?
ReplyDeleteI have been finding myself increasingly drawn into reverence--truly awe-filled wonder--recently. Specifically after reading Scott Hahn's "The Lamb's Supper" and listening to Fr. Larry Richards' CD "The Mass Explained." It's not that I was liturgically unaware; rather that my catechesis had been seriously lacking. I knew the elements and timing of liturgy. I knew the cycles of readings. I knew (sort of) how to pray. But knowing more fully the biblical flow of the liturgy, the true depth of Christ present throughout the Mass, in the Word, in the Eucharist, and in nearly every word spoken: THAT is what has made the Mass come alive with reverence for me.
ReplyDeleteAlso........when cantoring at Mass offered by a truly holy priest, one who is clearly in love with Jesus, who is intent upon Him in the Sacrament of the Altar, it is amazing and humbling to be so close to him as he lifts the Body of Our Lord at the moment of elevation after speaking the words of institution.....I have seen priests who speak the words, lift the Host, and set it down again, and then move on, going through the motions of the Mass as though he's just doing his job. He is, I suppose. But the difference is striking when contrasted with a priest who looks as though he can scarcely bear to lower Our Lord back to the altar, as though he would rather just hold Him up there forever, adoring Him in the Echarist.
Just a thought.
:)