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The dignity of the Liturgy is
found in its simplicity
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I was struck several years ago by the doyenne of the
Katholic Krazies, an author by the name of Solange “Nellie” Hertz, writing
about how the American Republic is fundamentally incompatible with our Catholic
faith because of its roots in freemasonry and the incongruity of republicanism
with authentic Catholicism which is essentially monarchist. Anyone who has ever known Mrs. Hertz knows
that she is a whack-job of the first degree, a person who lives in a parallel
universe where the reality coordinates are stuck in the presidency of Dwight
Eisenhower. But her conviction that
republican government is fundamentally flawed has won its disciples. A few
years ago Michael Voris on his “Church Militant TV” (then “Real Catholic TV)
advocated the idea that we need to replace our constitution with a Catholic
monarchy in which what suffrage there would be would be limited to practicing
Catholics.
Now Voris is crazy, though not as crazy as Hertz, but there
are others who pick up their cry. One of
the Katholic Krazy blogs, Eponymous
Flower (http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com)
declares itself: “This
is a polemical Catholic Royalist blog.”
When I first came across Eponymous Flower I thought that it was perhaps
British or Australian, but over the time I have perused it is is clearly an
American blog. Why is an American a
royalist? I mean I can see it if you
are British, or even Australian or Canadian.
But why would an American be “royalist?”
I thought all the Tories moved to Nova Scotia in 1784.
Now in the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that
I am a sucker for Royal weddings and funerals.
I love watching the Horse Guards go prancing down the Mall, the
carriages rolling along, the trumpets, the resonant tones of the Archbishop of
Canterbury intoning Cranmer’s sonorous phrases. (Glad I checked that
word—originally I had “somnolent phrases.”)
And nobody does band music like the Brits—solemn, stately; not the
county fair sound of John Philip Sousa.
But I realize that at the end of the day, it is all a charade. That old lady with the sparkly thing on her
head has to waddle into the bathroom and sit herself down to do her business
like the rest of us. God bless her, I
hope she as an easier time of it than most people her age—or mine—in the
mornings. But the Queen-thing isn’t real. It never really was real, but the dear old
thing can’t send a dinner invitation out without consulting with her Prime
Minister. It is all an illusion—the
robes, the crown, “Rule Britannia” and “God Save the Queen;” the power lies
elsewhere. It had its day but there is
nothing left to it but the theatre. And
the faith in God that Jesus has entrusted to us is real, is more real than
anything in existence. And while good
liturgy has elements of theatre, it has to be real and can’t be pretend.
When I see Bishop Dewane or Bishop Olmstead or Bishop
Slattery getting all gussied up in their antique finery or see the “canons” of
the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest hosting some prelate
engulfed in fur and dragging nine yards of red silk behind him, I can’t help
but think that unintentionally a mockery is being made of the most sacred thing
in the world. The ultimate Reality is
being reduced to farce, to grown men involved in some archaic ceremony that has
lost its roots in an irrecoverable culture that once gave it its meaning. It exists now for itself, without reference
to the Mystery of which it once spoke.
What is left is artificial: a suspension of the world in which we live
in favor of the imaginary world of some idealized past when kings sat on
thrones and their subjects scraped and bowed without raising their eyes to look
their Master in his face. That world is
an escape from the complexities of the world in which we live: a world of
ambiguities and struggles; a world where roles are changing; a world where
people are suffering and dying from the effects of war and famine and disease;
but also a world where there is hope for a very different social order where
God’s children will be able to reach the dreams and destinies that their heavenly
Father has hoped for them. This is the
world where God is truly King: where Christians consecrate themselves to make
certain that to the fullness of their abilities aided by Grace that each of
God’s children can have the share of this world’s goods that our Father in
heaven wants them to have. And we need a
liturgy that celebrates that promise—the true Kingdom—rather than parody the
ceremonials of some earthly court. It was
fine in its day, but that day is over.
Such a liturgy manifests the diversity of gifts within the
entire Body of Christ. It is not
centered on the priest but the priest stands in the place of Christ at the
heart of the community. Such a liturgy
invites people to a “full, active, and conscious” participation in the liturgy
because they are called to a full, active, and conscious participation in the
proclamation of the Kingdom of God—again, that Kingdom in which each of God’s
children will be given the fulfillment that his or her Heavenly Father has
created them for.
I’m sorry, but the old rite is the
glorification of the priest. O sure,
apart from the sermon, he doesn’t get to do the insufferable monologue that
some priests do at various points of the Mass but in the old rite the whole
ritual is designed to focus on him as he whispers “the magic words” that only
he can say and for which we depend on him to be our mediator and intercessor. He and he alone represents Christ, stripping
the other members of the Body of their baptismal identity. He has
his little tri-cornered hat with a pom-pom and his lace petticoat beneath the
gorgeously brocaded gown and the spotlight never leaves him. Give me the naked Christ. Let me see Christ in the least of his sisters
and brothers. Let me see him in the
lonely, in the frightened, in the helpless and the hopeless. And let me see a priest who recognizes Christ
not in the splendidly robed caricature of a man but in the least of the
brothers and sisters.
I must say that I am spoiled as over the years I have
generally been able to attend the conventual Mass of a monastic community where
I have seen the Novus Ordo done in a
magnificent simplicity. The church is severely plain with no distraction but
great beauty in the arrangement of space and light with a great sense of
proportion. The vesture is simple and
masculine. The music, for the most part
contemporary and in English or Spanish, is deeply throated and rich. There is no sense of fuss or hurry and while
every rubric is followed, it is done so with an economy and a sense of
grace. The liturgy is an experience that
is both deeply contemplative and communal.
And I am well aware that few parishes achieve this type of liturgical
prayer—but it is within their reach. And
it avoids the buffoonery of baroque revival in a world that has moved beyond
royal courts of a vanished monarchial Europe.
Cardinal Dulles wrote that the first thousand years of the
papacy were a time of evangelization; the second were a time of power; the
third millennium will be a time of service.
I think what he wrote pertains not to the papacy alone but to the entire
Church. I think we are reawakening to
the mission which Christ has entrusted to his Church. The triumphalism of monarchy does not speak
to that mission, and we need a liturgy that does. We need to be a servant Church and we need a
liturgy that reflects our mission to be servants, not masters. That is the Church I believe is the Church of
Jesus Christ.
