January 27, 2010
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Bp. Athanasius Schneider speaks about Holy Communion
One of the reasons why I love the Traditional or Tridentine Latin Mass is that I believe it is simply how one would want to do Mass if one really believed what the Church teaches – and has always taught – about the Mass itself, and therefore about the Priesthood which is ordained to celebrate it. One of many aspects which demonstrates this difference can be related in the following two interviews with Bp. Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Karaganda in Kazakhstan (about whom you can read more here - H/T Hermeneutic of Continuity):
Here is a more recent interview with Fr. Mitch Pacwa of EWTN:
Of course, it is true that it is “technically possible” (in the abstract) to receive the Sacred Host kneeling and on the tongue even in a Novus Ordo Eucharist – after all, that’s how the Holy Father himself has decreed that the Sacrament will be received by anyone fortunate enough to assist when he is celebrating. However, it is rarely provided for in any practical way, making it (concretely) “practically impossible” for the greatest majority of Catholics attending the average Novus Ordo parish Mass. After all, very few Catholic Churches still have their altar rails – if they ever did have them, they were removed - and most parishes don’t provide a kneeler in order to allow for reception kneeling and on the tongue. For some reason – and I believe I know at last part of the answer - there is a great deal of resistance to following the Pope’s lead in this area of liturgical practice.
One of the more pernicious aspects of the “Reform” which was inflicted upon the Catholic faithful following (and, mis-leadingly in the name of) the Second Vatican Council was the degrading of the doctrine of the Eucharist into “merely” a communal meal – essentially a function of (and therefore primarily *about*) the Community of Faith itself, rather than as it had always been seen, primarily about the encounter of the Faithful with Jesus Christ, the God-Man himself under the forms of bread and wine. This has the effect of reducing the Eucharistic liturgy to merely a horizontal, human, political type of meeting, rather than allowing it’s vertical, divine, and Spiritual nature to be seen.
Let us be clear: it is not that the Second Vatican Council at ANY point called for such a degrading of the Liturgy, nor did the Council change any of the doctrines which the Catholic Church has always taught about the nature of the Eucharist and of the Priesthood ordained to celebrate it. However, as a result of the disconnect between the operating presuppositions of those who were tasked with updating the Liturgy, that is exactly the effect which has occurred at the parish level for almost all Catholics today. And, because lex orandi, lex credendi, is simply a fact – a “law” if you will – of life, this attitude has worked its way back into the teaching in the seminaries in liturgics, and into the administrative structure – the bureaucracy – of the various dioceses and down to the parish level.
It will take a great deal of patience and consistency, as Bp. Athanasius reflects, in teaching by younger Priests and Bishops who haven’t succumbed to this false and reductionist idea of the Eucharist, for this practical degradation of the parish-level attitude about what’s going on in the Sacrament of the Altar to be overcome.
Of course, it is much easier if one recognizes that there is no need to re-invent the wheel here! The Traditional or Tridentine Latin Mass is simply waiting to be said by any priest – now that it has been definitively freed by the Holy Father in his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.
Gentlemen, start your engines!
Comments (3)
Most interesting….I find myself thinking about the different liturgies and that “there can’t be that much difference between the two”…but not BEING Catholic, I can’t really make that judgment! Then I read something like this and get the picture that there really IS difference! More food for thought!
What struck me about the Bishop in these interviews was the reverence and love with which he described the Eucharist as it ought to be received – and how it seemed to genuinely hurt him to even describe improper behavior during Holy Communion. Even with my limited exposure to both the NO and the EF, the profound difference in the seriousness with which the Eucharist is approached in the EF is a huge contrast to the NO. At the same time, I have sensed a truly joyful and thankful spirit from the congregation in every NO service I have attended, and have marveled at the communion I am able to share, even as a non-member, and even in a liturgy which falls short of the ideal, with so many who are so devoted to Christ.
I don’t come into this discussion with much knowledge of the issues concerning “EF” and “NO”, other than having been a non-communing attendee at many “NO” masses as of late. But in my experience there doesn’t seem to be any “irreverence-proof” way to celebrate a liturgy, though some methods certainly help. I couldn’t help but notice and observe that the altarpieces and Communion rails at five out of six Free Lutheran churches where I have been pastor more closely resemble the traditional Catholic setup than the altar in the middle at our local Catholic parish! By the way, I’m still reeling at running into you guys again and discovering the new ecclesiastical direction you’ve gone. Whatever happened to the “TULIP” garden you once tended so faithfully?!?!?