Winning or Losing "Capture the Flag"

The Crystal Cathedral--soon to be
Christ Cathedral of the Diocese
of Orange (CA)

In a chapel of the parish Church where I often attend Mass is a plain brass altar cross.  It is not a crucifix, it is a plain cross.  The pastor explained to me that it is from the altar of the local Lutheran Church which closed two years ago as membership had declined to the point where the church could no longer operate.  “We bought it when the Church closed.  It’s sort of like ‘capture the flag’,” Father said.  “And we won.” 

On a larger scale, the magnificent Crystal Cathedral built by Reverend Robert Schuller in 1981 and formally affiliated with the Reformed Church in America was sold to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange (CA) in 2012 after Crystal Cathedral Ministries filed for bankruptcy.  It is being refurbished for Roman Catholic “altar centered worship” and will be reopened and dedicated as a Catholic Church next year.  Dr. Schuller died this past Holy Thursday and his funeral will take place in his former Crystal Cathedral on April 20^th.   His life-work, Crystal Cathedral Ministries, imploded after his retirement, allegedly due to rivalries among his children for control. 

It may seem that we Catholics “are winning” in the battle for souls but don’t take these isolated triumphs as signs of something bigger.  Some years back I was travelling in Greece and ran into Reverend Lon Solomon, pastor of McLean Bible Church in McLean Virginia.  McLean Bible has six campuses in the Washington DC Metropolitan area and probably counts about 25,000 members.  “Half my congregants are former Catholics” Reverend Solomon told me.  “And they bring a lot to us—certainly a deep appreciation of Holy Communion.”  That is not a phenomenon unique to McLean Bible.  Pastors of “Evangelical” megachurches across the country testify to how many of their worshippers were born and raised in the Catholic Church.  While many Catholics today have simply stopped going to Church altogether, not a few have switched to churches where they feel they are getting more spiritual nourishment. 

Now, many devout Catholics would argue “how could you possibly get more nourishment from worship than from the Mass and Holy Communion?”  And, as a Catholic with a strong Eucharistic spirituality, I know what they mean, but we need to listen to what a not inconsiderable number of people are telling us.  You can’t argue with people’s experience, especially when it comes to how grace operates in their lives.  Catholics finding a spiritual home in the megachurches is not an isolated phenomenon, though the style of worship is only one factor to be considered.       

Worship services in most megachurchs cannot be described under the traditional category of “liturgy,” but rather they usually follow a format known as “praise” or “praise worship.”  One person described his encounter with this format of worship saying: “The worship service was like attending a concert, it was loud and fun and anointed.... The praises of the people created such an amazing atmosphere. The worship leader, a true psalmist took us into heartfelt worship and a powerful anointing. People were weeping and falling on their faces. God filled that place like I had not felt in a very long time.

And I believe it was because the people were hungry, they cried out to him, they just loved on Him with no regard to time. It brought tears to my eyes thinking about how this act of intimate worship must have brought great joy to God.

I believe that is what most of us are missing in our personal lives and our church’s. True Worship. The kind that says, “nothing else matters.” The kind that says, “I’m not leaving here until I get what I came for, prayer, healing etc.”

I was particularly struck by the phrase “the kind (of worship) that says “nothing else matters.”  How many of us can truly say that our Sunday Worship put us in that space—where nothing but God and his Will truly matters to us?  How many of us find our attendance at Mass to be the sort of re-conversion where we give our hearts totally to God?  

This form of worship is very foreign to most of us Catholics though those among us who have had experience with the Catholic Charismatic movement would know what the above quoted gentleman is speaking of.  It also would not be the taste of many regular Mass-going Catholics.  But the operative word there is “regular Mass-going Catholics.”  It obviously has drawn many Catholics who find that it speaks to them in some way that our traditional rites do not. 

This may provide the challenge for us to develop a new rite that is more effective in meeting the spiritual needs of those for whom the current rites—Ordinary Form or Extraordinary Form—do not.  Just as the Churches of Africa and Asia have found spiritual vitality in their respective inculturations of the Liturgy, there is no reason that the Catholic Church in our North American culture might not benefit as well from forms of worship that better fit the spiritual expression of our culture.  I am not suggesting that we replace the current liturgy but some parishes might want to try Eucharistic celebrations in this sort of format.  At the very least, there certainly would be no problem in offering non-Eucharistic worship services in the context of praise-worship.

Such worship would most usually be somewhat more free in structure and with greater shared leadership inclusive of lay worship leaders.  Only an ordained priest could, of course, offer the Eucharistic Prayer or perform other sacramental roles that require Sacred Orders but the “presidency” of the service could otherwise be share out among a number of properly prepared worship leaders.  And for non-sacramental worship there would be no problem whatsoever in having lay leaders.   In fact, including a non-sacramental worship service in the weekend line-up might provide a welcome spiritual harbor for those who may not, for one reason or another, be receiving the Eucharist.   We Roman Catholics are used to having only the Mass for weekend worship, but the Eastern Rites of the Church have long had non-Eucharistic worship with Saturday Evening Vespers and Sunday Morning Orthros as Weekend Services along with the Divine Liturgy. 

Praise Worship is heavy on music.  It may be traditional hymnody led by choir and organ as was usual at the Crystal Cathedral in the days of Robert Schuller’s pastorate or it may be the more contemporary praise music used in churches that draw a somewhat younger audience.  Hillsong United (band), Sanctus Real, and Mercy Me are three of well known church bands doing Praise Music.  Praise worship also includes people giving testimony to the power of God’s grace in their lives.  This is different from the preaching which is usually a more structured exposition of a scriptural text and is delivered by one of the congregation’s recognized and qualified ministers.  Praise worship also generally permits more extensive intercessory prayer than traditional Catholic worship. 

Overall, praise-style worship tends to lead the participant to a more transcendent awareness of the Presence of God.  Even as the Traditional Latin Mass emphasized the Majesty and Power of God through a profound inner experience reached by the formality of stately music and royal court ceremonial, so praise-style worship also leads the worshipper to an awareness of the Majesty and Power of God but takes the route of a profound inner experience generated by emotional music and a more spontaneous style of worship.

I must admit that personally I shy away from either path, and indeed from a highly transcendent encounter with God.  My own longtime preference for a Spartan understated monastic style of worship permits me to enjoy the current Roman Rite when it is done with measured pace and great simplicity.  But it is obvious that just as the Traditional Latin Mass draws a certain crowd, another crowd is being drawn away from the Church by the praise format of worship.  I think we need to look into that and creatively respond.  

History in the Making: More on the Reasons Catholics (don't) Attend Mass



Cardinal Burke presiding at Mass at Gricigliano,
Italy.  One does have to wonder if His Eminence
understands the difference between "reverence" and
"pomp." 



Sorry that I have dropped this for a few days—life sometimes runs faster than I can catch up with, but now I’m back.  I had been discussing reasons why Catholics do (and don’t) go to Mass.   Some time back I had mentioned that Cardinal Burke, an American “serving” in the Roman Curia attributes the fall off in Mass attendance to the “lack of reverence” with which Mass is so often celebrated these days.  I must admit that I too am concerned about the lack of reverence, though I think his Eminence and I have different ideas what “lack of reverence: means.  (If you follow the “Reform of the Reform” or the “New Liturgical Movement” you might suspect that His Eminence has a tendency to confuse reverence towards God with pomp that is focused on him.)  But in any case, in speaking to people who do attend Mass, I am getting a more specific view on what draws people to Church.  I had mentioned the other day that for many the number one draw is a “sense of community.”  Much like the bar in Cheers, people want to gather in a place where “everyone knows your name.”  While some might object that this is not a sufficiently worthy reason for “true” or “spiritual” Christians, I remember the old axiom that “Grace builds on nature.” When people feel invested in a network of relationships, it draws them to return and to become ever more committed.  This is the most common response I had to the question of “Why do you faithfully attend Mass” when I spoke with people at the church where I (and approximately thirty-eight hundred others) gather each weekend for Mass.

This desire for “belonging” corresponds to my experience when I was invited recently to lecture at a major Evangelical mega-Church in California.  I had about twelve-hundred attend a Sunday Morning “Sunday School” where I was asked to explain certain Catholic practices to the attendees of a between-the-services coffee hour/adult education program.  I asked how many in the audience might be former Catholics.  About thirty per-cent raised their hands.  I asked them to fill out cards and explain why they had “left” the Catholic Church.  The overwhelming answer was the lack of community—of knowing others and being known by others—that they had experienced in their Catholic days.  Recently, after a similar program in a six-hundred member Episcopal Church on the East Coast, I again asked the reason why those former Catholics in the audience  (about thirty out of an audience of a hundred or so) had left and was told because they found the Catholic Church “impersonal and rigid.”   

The second most common reason I heard for regular Mass attendance among my fellow worshippers on Sunday Morning is the quality of the Liturgy.  Now, I was surprised to hear this as I find the liturgy in this particular parish where I normally go to Mass to be rather bland.  It isn’t bad—it just isn’t good.  The music is, to my taste, over-weighted to the contemporary musicians—Haugen, Haas, Cooney, etc.  Don’t get me wrong—I think their songs are fine.  The melodies are singable and memorable, with some emotional impact.  The lyrics are more than pious claptrap and reinforce a sound theology—especially a sound and contemporary ecclesiology.  But I don’t find this music to be enough by themselves to create the best worship environment.  We Catholics have a rich heritage of music that must not be forgotten.  I don’t mean the “On This Day, O Beautiful Mother” drivel but the great Latin Classics.  And while I am thoroughly committed to the new liturgy (and very hesitant about this new translation), I think that not only should the better Latin music be maintained (alongside new songs), but that every congregation should know the basic Mass parts in Gregorian Chant.  Of course I am a former Latin teacher and, as a historian, am somewhat biased towards what I think to be the best of the past.  And then there is also the rich heritage of Protestant hymnody from which we can draw.  It is not our heritage, but there is no reason why we can’t use it to enhance our prayer.  Charles Wesley’s hymns are particularly rich theologically.  (And in fact, often used in Catholic Churches.)  And while Protestant hymnody has its share of shallow sentimental crap that should be more revived than should our pre-Vatican II repertoire, there simply is far too much good music and good theology to ignore it.  

Well, I got carried away a bit there and liturgy is far more than music.  While I think we could do better with the music at my parish than we do, there are positive points about the liturgy.  We do have a great organ.  It is electronic and not pipe, but better than most pipe organs.  We just do not use it enough—a little too much piano for my taste.  We make good use of trumpet, violin, cello, flute and other instruments.  The choir, on the other hand, could use work; in particular they could learn to sing parts. The readers are excellent, but the altar servers could be much better trained.  (We have both boys and girls.  They serve together and there seems to be no problem recruiting either.)  The vestments and paraments are in good condition and the church is always tastefully decorated—somewhat understated, which works well in our building—every Sunday and not just Christmas and Easter.

The deacon is somewhat clumsy and basks a bit too much in the spotlight (the visiting supply priests have all asked that he not be assigned with them) but the various priests—both those attached to the parish and those who come to help out—are reverent without being either pompous or stiff.  They each have their own style.  Father X is somewhat pious, Father Y is rather “evangelical,” and Father Z has a somewhat Episcopalian formalism—but it provides a good balance.  Our pastor is just “homey”—a simple man who speaks and prays straight from the heart.  He’s best of all, but unfortunately he is taking a new assignment. 

So while I have seen better liturgy, I have rarely seen the combination of liturgy and community we have here and I think it is key to the equation that draws people to our parish for mass.     Next time—hopefully tomorrow—other reasons that draw people to Mass.