The 11-minute Mass and the Book of Kells

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jul 30, 2010

During our vacation stay in Ireland, Leila and I took a short walk to the local parish church on a Saturday morning to attend Mass. The experience was a revelation.

The priest said all the prayers at such a breakneck speed that I could not make out the individual words. The congregation matched his pace with the responses. I could barely keep up the recitation of Lord’s Prayer. The readings were a blur. There was no homily. Mass was over in 11 minutes.

We tried the same parish again for Sunday Mass, but we had not read the bulletin carefully. We thought we were arriving 5 minutes before the designated time; actually we were 25 minutes late. Sunday Mass had already ended!

Fortunately there was another parish nearby, where the Mass was celebrated at a comparatively sedate pace. But the frantic rush to finish the Eucharistic liturgy as quickly as possible was shocking.

When I mentioned our experience to Irish friends, they reacted with only mild surprise. An 11-minute Mass was somewhat extraordinary, they conceded. But in Ireland the liturgy is regularly celebrated on an accelerated schedule. The faithful like to “get Mass” quickly, and will avoid a parish where the priest takes too much time. During Lent, my friends told me, one Irish priest had earned widespread acclaim for trimming the weekday Mass down to under 10 minutes, so that it would be easier for the faithful to attend daily 

Ordinarily I have no strong opinions about the tempo of the liturgy. Some people talk faster than others; there is no single “right” speed for public reading or communal prayer. Still there are reasonable limits. When the Mass is celebrated at a lightning pace, with never a spare moment for reflection, the result is spiritually enervating.

The Scriptures have something to say to us, every day. Yes, we may have heard the readings before, but if we listen carefully and mediate on the Word, we can gain new insights— but only if we have time to hear and digest the words. The Eucharistic Prayer is a great catechesis, a reminder of the holy Sacrifice that is taking place. The words of the Mass should inspire reverence and awe. But they cannot have that effect if we are speeding headlong through the text. By rushing through the liturgy at a pell-mell pace, that little congregation—which, I gather, was not atypical of the Irish Catholic experience—was risking a mechanistic approach to the Mass: an attitude that the liturgy is something we want to get through as quickly as possible.

Christians are under a solemn obligation to honor the Sabbath. Is it realistic to think that a family will organize its day around an event that occupies just 25 minutes? During Lent we are called to make special sacrifices. Is a pastor really encouraging spiritual growth if he shortens daily Mass so that parishioners can attend without making any sacrifice at all?

The Eucharistic Sacrifice is an act of love. A love that is always expressed in a rush, with an eye on the clock, is a love that will soon grow cold.

Have Irish Catholics always been inclined to speed through the Liturgy? I doubt it. Moreover, I can produce strong evidence to the contrary.

Later in our stay we visited the library at Trinity College in Dublin, and saw the Book of Kells. The lavish care that Irish monks put into that work, the profuse illustration on every line of the Gospels, the meticulous attention to the smallest detail—all testify to a very different attitude. These illustrators approached the Gospels with reverence, with love, and with a willingness to spend as much time as necessary—a lifetime, indeed—to encourage greater appreciation for the Word of God.

The Book of Kells is a work of art, to be sure. But it is not ordinary artwork—not the work of detached illustrators. Every page bears witness to the monks’ desire to accentuate the message of the Gospel, and to savor every word as they did so. There is a staggering richness to the text, conveying a message of deep faith that is unmistakable nearly a millennium later.

Today’s Irish Catholics need not read the Sunday Gospel from the Book of Kells. But at a time when the Church in Ireland needs a fresh infusion of zeal, they might profit from the example of those dedicated illustrators, and learn to take time reflecting on the Word, in the Scripture and in the Eucharistic liturgy.