I actually felt less like a participant than a paying customer. Add the ampitheater seating and proscenium lighting of the newer churches, and it becomes even more clear. When the church I attended started proudly using girls as servers during Mass, I just couldn’t stomach it anymore. (At the time, it had nothing to do with the gender of the servers, it was the sickening sense of pride that they felt over being so innovative. Bleaaarrrghhh.) I left the church for several years. I came back after finding my faith through Classical philosophy (and the school of hard knocks). I still didn’t enjoy the staged mass, but felt that 1 hour a week was the least I could do in return for all that God had done for me.
Naturally, when I had children, it was very important to me that they should learn the importance of going to Mass every Sunday with the proper reverence. Unfortunately, the older they got, the more I realized that this was an insurmountable task. How can one teach children to pay attention during Mass when the other children around them are all munching on cheerios and coloring in coloring books? How can they learn to show proper respect when the other kids are chewing gum and chit-chatting, and wearing jeans, death metal t-shirts and bare midriffs?
It was at this time that I decided to finally act on a bit of information I had received years before: I had heard that the Latin Mass was still being said in some places. I found the nearest location and went early one Sunday morning.
Just like that first philosophy course I took—the one that eventually led me back to my faith—here I found myself lost, overwhelmed, unable to find a foothold. It was love at first sight. I started rising in the pre-dawn hours on Sunday mornings (and those who know me well can appreciate what a sacrifice that is for me) so that I could attend the
The only thing I had ever known about the Pre-Vatican II Mass was that everyone seemed so glad to be rid of it. The priest turned his back to you!!! The congregation didn’t participate! It was in a dead language that nobody understood! Thank goodness we got rid of these useless old vestigial rites (as if they were tonsils or appendices)!
What no one seemed to appreciate was that in reality, the priest was facing the same direction as the congregation. As in, he is our proxy, laying our supplications before the Lord. The congregation didn’t merely mumble responses on auto-pilot; they actually had to work at it if they wished to meet the Mass on its own level, rather than vice-versa. And to add insult to injury, in excising the Latin, the architects of the new Mass excised a great deal of the beautiful recitations, rituals and rubrics. Before, a priest didn’t need to have an impressive intonation,
because the words of the consecration—the pinnacle of the Mass—were not performed, they were spoken scarcely above a whisper. The bells were there to let you know when Our Lord’s presence was nigh.
Our transition as a family to the new Old Mass was especially bumpy. The children who grow up with this silent, reverent mass knew how to be silent and reverent. Our children did not have this benefit; they were used to being in the “kids room” whenever they weren’t leaving Mass to go to “Sunday School”. Let’s just say it was quite a shock for them, and it was a thankless struggle for us. Our payment usually came in dagger glances, sniffles, and even rude comments. But I refused to give up. Our children still are not perfectly quiet during
The wrench of it all is that we are not always home every weekend, and so we sometimes have to attend the local parish wherever we are. Sometimes that’s OK, and sometimes it’s not. I’m willing to suffer in humble silence, but when my daughter made her First Communion this year, it suddenly became an important issue.
She had never received Communion standing up, or in the hand, or from a layperson.
Nor did I feel that she should. I don’t.
In fact, for a long time, I did not receive the sacrament outside of the Latin Mass. I continue to struggle with my conscience over what not I, nor the Church, but My God deems right. What does He ask of me in this regard? If I cannot be present at the traditional Mass, that Mass to which I feel He himself called me, should I attend a new Mass? If I do attend a new Mass, should I receive communion? How should I receive communion? What should I do when I behold an egregious example of disrespect for the sanctity of the Mass?
I have continually wavered in my responses to these questions. I have sought advice from all those whose opinions I valued, including any priest who would listen. Some failed to understand the problem; some forbade me to attend a “Pius X schism” Mass; some forbade me to attend a “novus ordo” Mass. Perhaps the best advice I got was from a very young priest who had struggled with similar issues. He advised me to never miss Mass, no matter how bad, but to humbly intercede through my presence there that healing may be brought about in that place. I still will not receive the Eucharist from any other than the priest’s hand, and I have finally found the courage to receive Our Lord’s body only while kneeling or at least genuflecting. I pray that in doing so, I can make a humble yet persistent statement that reverence is still alive and well.
Yet I continue to struggle mightily. I know it is our fate in these times to suffer confusion in our faith, and I know that even the wisest advice cannot take the place of God’s own plan for me and my family. I continually beg Him to guide me in this respect, that I may be pleasing to Him, and that I may guide my children’s steps on the right path. I felt a special torment very recently, and again I begged God to show me what I must do. I felt that attending this particular church was unbearable and I wanted, more than anything, not to attend. I swallowed my pride and misgivings and attended anyway, and I felt that the readings that morning spoke to me of the comfort I was seeking.
The first reading was from Wisdom, chapter 12:
There is no god besides you who have the care of all,
that you need show you have not unjustly condemned.
For your might is the source of justice;
your mastery over all things makes you lenient to all.
For you show your might when the perfection of your power is disbelieved;
and in those who know you, you rebuke temerity.
But though you are master of might, you judge with clemency,
and with much lenience you govern us;
for power, whenever you will, attends you.
And you taught your people, by these deeds,
that those who are just must be kind;
and you gave your children good ground for hope
that you would permit repentance for their sins.
(Emphasis mine) I understood this to mean that though this Mass was not perfect, that we as humans can never attain perfection. To be just means to be humble, not judgemental. They may be in error, but their intentions—and mine—are known to God and he will reward each according to their deeds.
The second reading confirmed my understanding even more powerfully:
Brothers and sisters:
The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.
And the one who searches hearts
knows what is the intention of the Spirit,
because he intercedes for the holy ones
according to God’s will.
This snippet from Romans, chapter 8, spoke directly to my conflicted soul: we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. Without exception, we are all struggling to keep up with our Lord as he ascends
Even the Gospel reinforced His point:
Jesus proposed another parable to the crowds, saying:
“The kingdom of heaven may be likened
to a man who sowed good seed in his field.
While everyone was asleep his enemy came
and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.
When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.
The slaves of the householder came to him and said,
‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
Where have the weeds come from?’
He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’
His slaves said to him,
‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest;
then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters,
“First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning;
but gather the wheat into my barn.”’” (Matthew 13:24-30)
We fool ourselves in thinking that we can separate ourselves from the weeds. We must reach out to Him from where we are, and not fail to do so simply because we are not where we most want to be—after all, that place we most want to be is in His bosom.
I do believe we are doing the right thing by making the sacrifices we do to attend the most reverent and holy Mass we have access to. I cannot interpret this message as an excuse to become complacent in this regard. However, it gives me great solace to feel that for the first time, I know what I must do. Ivory towers will not do. To be just, I must be kind. The Holy Spirit will intercede for me, whether I am at the Tridentine Mass or the Novus Ordo Mass, or in a field in
My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation: I will sing to the Lord, who giveth me good things: yea I will sing to the name of the Lord the most high. (Psa 12:6)
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