Reverence and the Sacred Mysteries
In a theology class at Providence College in the sixties I had a student who had been poorly instructed in his native Portugal prior to his conversion and baptism. One day in class I lectured on the real presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Upset, the boy came to see me after class. He said he had thought that receiving Holy Communion was only a way of expressing fraternity with the other students. He had no concept of the real presence until the theology lecture.
Fr. Brian Mullady, O.P., in the Homiletic & Pastoral Review, May 1989, speaks of some poorly instructed priests. "The aspect of the Mass in which we enter into the Mediatorship of the Son of God in his atonement is obscure for them. The Mass may have been presented to them only as a sacred meal, not unlike an ordinary meal, The priest is to preside over this meal like a human father does over a human meal. Perhaps what we can celebrate there seems only a celebration of human solidarity."
Lest anyone think Fr. Mullady is treating of a matter remote from today's reality, let me quote remarks of a Catholic priest which appeared in the magazine U.S. Catholic, January 1990. This priest, a campus minister or pastor, said: " . . . one person does not make the Lord present. The Risen Lord is present." Presumably the sacramental presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is inconsequential. One wonders why Jesus ever said: "Do this in remembrance of me," after saying over bread: "This is my Body," and over wine: "This is the chalice of my Blood." Why didn't he say, "Now that this little meal is concluded be sure I shall be with you when I rise again"? Or better still, why didn't he say, "I shall be with you always by my power, as I am present to all my creatures by my creative and sustaining power?"
In view of the college pastor's remark, I find it difficult to understand why Jesus was so adamant about a Bread from heaven, as indicated in John 6. Jesus says: "I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the desert and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh" (John 6:48-51).
The Apostles too were challenged
Some of the Jews then say, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" They know what he says and they simply will not believe that he is able to do it. Jesus makes it more difficult for them to accept. He says to them: "Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." Our campus minister says: "I'm not sure it matters much arguing over the real presence if we forget we are the Body of Christ." It seemed to matter to Jesus. When the Jews said, "This is a hard saying and who can believe it?" they walked away from Christ and Jesus let them walk away. If they did not accept his teaching on the real presence they could not be his disciples.
He even challenged the apostles on this matter. He said to them: "Will you also go away?" If they do not accept his teaching authority they can go away also. Peter answers: "To whom shall we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God." The Holy One of God has said he will do an awesome thing. He will give his Flesh to eat and his Blood to drink. At the Last Supper he does it and gives his priests the power to do it, when he says to them, "Do this in remembrance of me." It is appalling to me that a Catholic priest would say: "I'm not sure it matters much arguing over the real presence, if we forget we are the Body of Christ."
Of course we are members of the Mystical Body of Christ. What the U.S. Catholic writer does not seem to understand is that the priest brings the whole Mystical Body into unity precisely by offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Father Mullady, in his article, says: "The faith in transubstantiation is necessary to the faith in the sacrifice and so in the priestly character. The difference between the priestly character of the ministerial priesthood and the priesthood of the laity is not just one of degree, but a metaphysical and internal one. Full development of priestly spirituality demands that the ministerial priest be conformed to the person of Christ. It is in this person that he as an instrument of Christ's transubstantiating action transforms the bread into Christ's body. If his body is present in substance, so is the whole Mystical Body, those of the past, those of the present, and those who may yet become members. This includes those beyond death in purgatory. The priestly character enables the ministerial priest to bring all these present with Christ and to offer his sacrificial action for them. No Mass can be a private Mass then. No Mass can exist without the union of the whole world in God found in the priestly Heart of Christ."
Hear what Mysterium Fidei, #32, has to say on this: "Every Mass, even though a priest may offer it in private, is not a private matter. It is an act of Christ and the Church . . . For every Mass celebrated is offered not for the salvation of only a few, but for the salvation of the whole world." Truly it is an awesome thing the alter Christus does at the altar.
How the Mass is trivialized by our campus critic when he says, "Without each other there is no Eucharist." St. Philip Neri frequently said Mass privately because he did not want to manifest his extraordinary devotion to Jesus in the Holy Sacrifice. The poor saint thought Jesus responded to his words of consecration. Not so according to our progressive critic. He says: "It is in the gathering that we remind one another that one person does not make the Lord present . . . we will come to see that Eucharist is not a matter of words of consecration but actions of the assembly." This is an advance on the old heresy that said the Eucharist became present by the faith of the people. Now it is by actions of the assembly. What actions? The bringing up of the gifts, the kiss of peace, perhaps a liturgical dance? Are some reducing the Mass to some kind of Y.M.C.A. fellowship meeting? It would seem so. This critic tells us the really important thing in the Mass is when you look the other fellow in the eye and shake his hand. What utter nonsense!
Reverence is often lacking
How did some of us in the Church arrive at such a conception of the Mass? Have we made mistakes liturgically? Have we even trained up seminarians in such a way that their attitude towards the Mass is not at all what had been the attitude of countless generations of priests before them? I'm not hankering for Mass in Latin, or Mass as under St. Pius V, or Mass facing away from the congregation. I'm talking about an attitude at the altar. When I see Pope John Paul II say Mass I have no problem. He is quite up to date, but also I discern a reverence in the man that is not found in some priests trained after Vatican II. Has the training produced that effect?
Comparisons are odious, I know. Contrasts are even more odious, but there surely has been a revolutionary attitudinal change with regard to the Holy Sacrifice since Vatican II. Serving Mass as a boy in the 1930s, I inadvertently touched the chalice as I poured water over the priest's fingers. I was corrected about this after Mass. That said to the little boy, "You are dealing with holy things. You must be more careful with regard to such holy things. Now a server handles the sacred vessels. He even handles the Bread of the Holy Eucharist itself. That server may later be a seminarian. He will continue to treat holy things in a familiar way. The boy of the 1930s, when he became a seminarian, was not allowed to touch the sacred vessels. He could not touch the monstrance, containing the Host, until he was a deacon. When he approached the altar to receive the Holy Communion he was sometimes required to prostrate himself in adoration before receiving. Also he had to adore the Lord at benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament several times weekly and spend at least one holy hour in adoration of the Holy Eucharist each week.
Priests are not actors
Of course all of that has disappeared. The emphasis now seems to be on the projection of one's personality as one offers the Holy Sacrifice. One must be communicating with the audience by way of word and gesture. In one seminary an actor trains seminarians in the proper manner of saying Mass. The actor does an excellent job in training the future priests as regards homiletics, but I question the wisdom of his teaching seminarians how to say Mass. I recall a veteran Sister saying of the priest with me in giving a retreat, "Father, he's a grandstander." She meant that he was acting like an actor even at the most solemn moments of the Mass. Again, when we received a new curate at a parish where I was assigned, many of the people couldn't abide his flamboyant conduct at the altar. Neither were they edified by his appearing in sports' clothes on the corner immediately after Mass, the center of a giggling gaggle of schoolgirls. "Glory be, can that be our priest?" some of them said. If we be casual may not the devotion of our people suffer casualty?
I am an itinerant preacher. That means that I have to adjust to the ground rules in a given parish. I do so so long as the local rules do not conflict with the directives of the universal Church or the prescriptions of the local ordinary. I would not agree with the pastor who does not permit what the Church permits, Communion in the hand, for example. Nor would I agree with him if he permits altar girls, which the Church does not permit. In neither case would I make an issue of the matter. What the pastor does and his ordinary permits are usually matters beyond my control. I mention this lest one get the impression I go about trying to change local customs. My aim in this article is to consider priestly attitudes at Mass and what may have occasioned those attitudes.
As an itinerant preacher I have had many experiences relative to the Holy Eucharist. Let me relate a few, this not to give "horror stories," but to suggest there has been a marked diminution of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament since Vatican II — this, by the way, post hoc and not propter hoc. Cardinal Ciappi some years ago asked me in a cab, "What do you think about Communion in the hand?" I said I was afraid it might diminish reverence for the Holy Eucharist. He said that they were already doing it in Rome. Soon thereafter we were doing it. In Buffalo one night my companion preacher complained that a boy had crushed to crumbs the Host given him at the mission Mass. The next night a boy did that at my Mass, and, when I quietly told him not to do that, his mother became offended.
There is a growing insensitivity to the presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. On a weekend assignment I had just offered holy Mass. In the interval before the next Mass I wanted to make a thanksgiving and a preparation for the next Mass by way of the rosary. Despite the noise and confusion in the church I went there to pray. Little children were running about at play. The grownups were in little groups laughing and talking together, a parish priest in their midst. I began the rosary,
but one of the lectors came over to interrupt me with some item of local gossip. No one in that church seemed at all aware of the presence of Jesus in the tabernacle. In another church, as I tried to pray, the choir was about to practice beside the altar. They were laughing and talking as though at a bingo game. In a monastery I came one afternoon to say the rosary, The altar boys there were to practice serving. Meanwhile they were running about the sanctuary, up and down the aisles, and in and out of the church. When their priest director arrived I heard nary a word of correction. A New York priest in HPR years ago asked, "Are there two churches now, one believing in the true presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, the other not believing?" I see nothing nowadays to contradict the validity of the question.
Carefully train ministers
In our churches these days we have what used to be called extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion. Most of them help the Church greatly in large congregations and in visiting the sick. They are to be commended and the Lord will bless them, and they may be increasingly needed, as priests grow old and die, and are not replaced by young priests. However, there have been abuses in this area, the priest counting collections while lay people distribute Holy Communion, for example. Or priests sitting down while lay people distribute the Blessed Sacrament. Pope John Paul II has described this as "reprehensible."
The training of these ministers of Holy Communion must be lacking in some instances. I was distributing Holy Communion with the celebrant and three extraordinary ministers a few years ago. We began to run out of Hosts. The celebrant and I went to the altar to break Hosts so that we would have enough. As we did so the three ministers came out of the sacristy with filled ciboria. I said to the visiting celebrant, "There is no need to break any more Hosts." After the distribution I said to the sexton, "Is there a chapel back here where they got the Hosts?" "No, Father," he said, "they must have taken unconsecrated Hosts from the cupboard in the sacristy!"
Two weeks later in another parish nearby I was combining the Hosts from various ciboria into one. One of the ministers of Holy Communion whispered, "I don't know if you should mix these with the others." "Why not?" I said. "Because when I ran out of Hosts I went to the closet in the sacristy and refilled the ciborium." Those good people, under pressure, perhaps forgot their training. They need extra care from priests lest they lose respect for what they handle. I think now of a woman whom I overheard saying flippantly, "Let's do the dishes." She spoke of purifying the sacred vessels used to distribute the Precious Blood.
I was stationed in South Carolina when major changes in the celebration of Mass occurred. Bishop Underkoeffler gave us a preview of the Mass as it would be. One new thing that I noted was that the celebrant would sit down after the reception of Holy Communion. I thought that some diminution of the adoration previously offered to the Lord. Have there not been other changes lessening the physical adoration of the Blessed Sacrament? Some of these changes I consider an improvement. However, why do they all seem to move in the same direction, away from profound adoration of the Holy Eucharist?
Consider the treatment of the Host. If I dropped a Host as a young priest I covered the spot with a purificator, and, after the Mass, I was required to wash the spot where the Host had rested. Our lay people noted that reverent treatment of the Host. An altar stone with relics and several layers of cloths were required on the altar. Purification of the corporal and the chalice were done much more diligently than they are now. In transporting the Blessed Sacrament I wore a numeral veil. If the Blessed Sacrament were exposed I went down on two knees, not on one as it is done now. The people went down on both knees as they received Holy Communion. Now some of our good people try to give some sign of reverence, as required before receiving, but inexorably they are moved along in the line. If one or two of them wish to receive on their knees they are sometimes treated as eccentrics by impatient priests. Some may be eccentric, but some may be more deeply spiritual than the priests who are supposed to serve them. Frank Sheed once said, "There is more spirituality in an old shoe than there is in some priests." If the shoe fits wear it.
St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of the need for an exterior humbling of the body with respect to adoration. In the Catholic U. area some years ago I attended a con-celebrated Mass. At the end of the Mass a considerable amount of the Precious Blood remained. The concelebrants were all seated. They remained seated and passed the chalice from one to the other. I thought of lords at a banquet. Some seminarians who came out of that milieu seem notably lacking in reverence. I have seen them assist at Mass with foot on knee, or hands draped behind their heads. Rarely have I seen them on their knees.
St. Thomas tells us: "Since we are composed of a twofold nature, intellectual and sensible, we offer God a twofold adoration; namely a spiritual adoration, consisting in the internal devotion of the mind; and a bodily adoration, which consists in an exterior humbling of the body." The good saint goes on to say: "And since in all acts of latria that which is without is referred to that which is within as being of greater import, it follows that exterior adoration is offered on account of interior adoration . . . "This interior adoration is the reason for the exterior adoration,
The cloistered nun in a monastery of perpetual adoration comes into the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and instantly expresses her interior devotion by casting herself on her knees before the Lord. Also she knows, if she is wise, that the exterior act of adoration leads to a greater interior devotion. St. Thomas says on this: "We exhibit signs of humility in our bodies in order to incite our affections to submit to God, since it is connatural to us to proceed from the sensible to the intelligible" (S.Th. II-II, 84, 2). In the Dominican Order to which I belong a practical result of this in choir are various attitudes of body—kneeling, rising, sitting, bowing, as we chant the Divine Office.
We all need a renewal
Many years ago I was transferring the Blessed Sacrament from the church to the auditorium in a fashionable Boston parish. It was a bitterly cold, dark day. There was a mixture of dirty slush and freezing rainwater in the school yard. As I carried the Holy Eucharist I met well dressed women about to enter the church. They began to throw themselves on their knees in the dirty, freezing slush and rainwater. I signaled to them that that was not necessary, but they sank to their knees anyway. Would that happen today?
We all need a renewal of the spirit expressed in our prayer: "O Sacred Banquet in which Christ becomes our food, the memory of his passion is celebrated, the soul is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us. V. You gave them bread from heaven. R. Containing every blessing. Let us pray: O God in this wonderful Sacrament you have left us a memorial of your passion. Help us we beg you, so to reverence the sacred mysteries of your body and blood that we may constantly feel in our lives the effects of your redemption. Who live and reign forever. Amen." •
Reverend Matthew V. Reilly, O.P., is a member of the Dominican Preaching Band. After serving three years as a line officer in the Amphibious Forces of the U.S. Navy in World War II, he joined the Dominicans and was ordained in 1953. He did parish work in New York City for two years and taught theology at Providence College for two years. Father Reilly has preached missions, novenas and retreats for twenty years and has published articles in Sponsa Regis, the Torch, and other magazines. © The Homiletic & Pastoral Review, 86 Riverside Dr., New York, N.Y. 10024, (212) 799-2600.
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