January 29, 2010

• [Updated with corrections as of 1/30/10]

  This poem/animation has been making the rounds recently, so perhaps many have already seen it, but I repost here for several reasons, first, the poem is an engaging critique of the level of much of today’s discourse, second, the person reciting the poem is very good at navigating the “voices” needed to bring out the humor in the middle of the poem, but then elevating to the necessary rhetorical level at the end of the poem, third, the animation is very clever and assists in communicating the points the poem is trying to make, and finally, because it brings to my mind one of the reasons why it is that the Church has always used Latin -  a language which, by virtue of it’s being “dead” doesn’t change in meaning, nor is it subject to fads or trends – such as those that are so effectively shown up by this poem. 

  Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo

  But there is a more important reason why I post this video, and that is to highlight an aspect which relates to how we do the Mass – how the truth in the texts of the Liturgy is communicated, both by verbal and by non-verbal means.  And this includes not only the language (and here I take this word “language” in its’ most inclusive sense, including the style of address – compare the poem’s “tragically hip interrogatory style”) but also the music to which texts are set, and vestments worn (or not worn) by those who are leading the worship, the way the sacred space is defined, both architecturally, and by means of sacred ritual movement (what was once possible to refer to as the “sacred dance” – that is before the advent of “liturgical dance” spoiled that term) the use (or non-use) of liturgical art, etc.

  The point I am trying to make is this: if we take the general point of the poem above and apply it specifically to the way we communicate those truths which we, as Catholic Christians, hold to be most sacred – in other words, apply this principle to the way we do Mass – then we come away with the recognition that it DOES matter “how” we do Mass.  It’s not an irrelevant matter – something which can and should be left to the taste of the individual.  Because what we are saying (among other things) when we relegate these matters (how we do Mass) to the realm of “taste” is that we are dealing with a topic where it just “doesn’t matter”, and therefore “how” we communicate – all the non-verbal messages communicated by, for example, using a hip-hop, popular/informal style of address, or the use of traditional vestments vs. rainbow-multi-coloured “modern-style” chasuble-alb, or the use or non-use of icons and statues of of Saints, or the presence (or absence) of a communion rail, or whether non-vested individuals roam freely about the sanctuary reading lessons and distributing the Holy Sacrament, or whether organ and Schola sing the liturgy, or whether a band of microphone-wielding pop-singers backed up by drums and electric guitars lead the singing, using the musical styles borrowed from the Jazz club or the Rock concert – all of these things, then, communicate a “sub-text” which either confirms the truth of the message or undermines that message.

  To show one example of how this works, I’m going to quote from one of the comments sent to Fr. Z in response to his “Old Mass/New Mass question“:

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  My first memory of beginning to care about liturgical forms and styles is of Holy Thursday services one year. I had grown to love Holy Thursday because all the traditional Holy Thursday rituals seemed so very timeless and traditional: It was the one day of the year where it seemed there was always incense and chant (the Pange Lingua), and for those reasons I found myself looking forward to it.

  However one year, instead of singing Pange Lingua during the Eucharistic procession they sang “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom …”, over and over, ad nauseum. I was extremely disappointed. Then, instead of the usual beautiful manner of exposing the Blessed Sacrament: in a monstrance on a covered table surrounded by flowers, they had it in a glass bowl with a lid, sitting on top of a feaux bronze cylinder, inside of which was a light bulb which shined up through the top of the cylinder, illuminating the glass bowl-o’-hosts. This cylinder was set in the middle of a circle of chairs, so that we all sat around looking at each other, rather than all kneeling in the same direction facing the exposed Host.

  After it was over, my son, who was then 7 years old, made this heartbreaking comment to me in the car: “I felt like it was just bread and we were all just pretending”. This, I felt, was what happened when people made up their own liturgies and liturgical styles: It feels like we’re kids putting on a show, because the made-up rituals don’t have the weight and depth of the centuries-old, time-tested ones. And as a result my son was experiencing doubts at the cynical old age of 7. (He is now 16 and has overcome them, praise God!)

  This was the first time I can remember being mad about the liturgy, or rather the abuse thereof, and felt that I and my children had been robbed of our heritage by people who wanted to make the liturgy more “relevant” to modern people.

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  What this commenter reveals is how impressively this “non-verbal subtext” of “how” we do Mass can undermine everything which the “texts themselves” are trying to communicate.  What should be clear from this example, especially in the context of the video/poem above, is that if the Church is to speak truth to a fallen world with the authority which properly accrues to that truth, it makes ALL the difference “HOW” that message is communicated, and when the non-verbal subtext is undermining much if not most of what the Magisterium teaches, and has always taught, about the Mass, and about the Priesthood which is ordained to celebrate it, then one ought not to be considered a “disloyal” Catholic for pointing this fact out, and letting people know that this is NOT congruent with what the Church means when it teaches what it has always taught concerning the Mass.

  I say this because these days one frequently comes across rebukes delivered by fellow Catholics (for example, see this post) which, whether conciously or not, can have the effect of marginalizing Catholics who DO notice (and then dare to comment publicly on) the ways in which the non-verbal subtext during many Novus Ordo Masses is undermining the truths which the Magisterium has consistently taught regarding the Mass and the Priesthood.  Now I should be quick to point out that the writer of the post is a faithful Catholic – I believe he is a monastic - and I am sure he is trying as hard as he can to be holy in accordance with what the Church teaches.  However, I believe he is seriously mistaken when he dismisses as merely “inessential” the power of non-verbal subtext to over-ride the truth of the teachings which he rightly holds to be “essential”.  While the things he classes as “inessential” may not directly affect the *validity* of a given Novus Ordo Mass, it would *not* be correct to assume that therefore ”it doesn’t matter” what we decide to do about them.  As  I hope I am in the process of showing here, it just isn’t that simple.   

  [NB: the preceding paragraph was updated on 1/30/10 to correct a mistake I found I had made in misreading Libera Me's post linked above - see here for detailed apology.]
  
  There are many places in the world, particularly in the developed world (take, for example Quebec, where prior to the liturgical “Reform” there was close to 90% church attendance, and today it is closer to 10%) where the power of the non-verbal subtext has, since the post-conciliar liturgical “Reform”, simply emptied Churches, Seminaries, Convents, and Monasteries – and this has led to strikingly detrimental effects upon related works such as Schools, Hospitals, and other charitable endeavours.  Why? Because the non-verbal subtext is powerful enough to communicate even to a 7-year old child, whether or not we “really” believe what we are saying about the Mass and the Priesthood, or whether it is “just bread and we were all just pretending“. And because eventually that 7-year old becomes a 16-year old, and then what is to stop him from shaking the dust off his feet as he leaves the faith of his baptism?  While (laus Deo) this did not happen in the case of the child referred to in the quote above, if we judge by the experience in Quebec (and elsewhere in the developed world) not much. 

  Real charity is not opposed to truth, and real charity does not seek to make excuses for hiding the truth behind a veneer of secular culture, or worse, for pronouncing the truth “with the lips” but only with “crossed fingers” – by contradicting that same truth through the MANNER (the “how”) of what is said.  It’s time we all were able to speak honestly – to speak truth with charity – about the travesty which the liturgical “Reform” has visited upon the Church, because only if we can face it honestly can we hope to find a way back from the edge of the precipice.

  Fortunately, there is a clear pathway to safety, lighted by the Holy Father himself, who has freed the celebration of the Traditional or Tridentine Latin Mass in his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, and has stated that he desires that it be offered in every parish.  For in the Mass of the Ages, there is no conflict between the non-verbal subtext and the text of the Mass itself, still less between the text of the Mass and the official teachings of the Magisterium concerning the Mass and the Priesthood ordained to celebrate it.  In the Mass of the Ages, the Church speaks with confidence, clarity, consistency, and with authority, those truths which are most central to the Catholic faith.  And you don’t have to be a PhD to understand this – even a 7-year old can sense the difference.

  Let us pray that there will be a growing awareness of the need to follow the Holy Father’s expressed desire to see the “Extraordinary Form” of the Roman Rite celebrated once more in every parish, that the Church may recover it’s lost sense of identity, and may proclaim once again with confidence, clarity, consistency, and authority, the message of the Truth to a lost and dying world.
  
  

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