By Father Scott Archer
If someone were to ask me how to make man the focus of the Mass, there are several things I would do. I would first remove the true presence of Christ from the church. In its place I would put a potted plant. I would then use as an altar of sacrifice, a small table, but it would be important for it not to be the focus of attention. It would have to be off to one side of the sanctuary, which itself would have to be more akin to a stage than a Catholic sanctuary. Once the tabernacle and altar were removed as the focus, the crucifix, the symbol of the sacrifice of Christ, would also have to be removed. Once the sanctuary had been cleared of religious imagery, I would turn to the people.
I would move the choir from the loft to the stage-sanctuary and include instruments that have never before been appropriate for liturgical use. Because the priest is an alter Christus (another Christ) acting in Persona Christi (in the Person of Christ), he would have to be removed from the sanctuary for any part of the Mass for which he wasn’t necessary. In fact, even parts that are necessarily done by the priest could be usurped by the laity; for example, the Gospel would not be read by the priest but spoken or sung by the laity. With the band moved into the stage-sanctuary, I would entertain the people by bringing in performers to interpret the Mass and readings through dance. Once Christ, his representative, and the altar of sacrifice are removed and replaced by a band, singers, and a dance troop, my goal will have been achieved.
If only this were merely a part of my imagination!
The video below gives a sad glimpse into the reality of how bad it can be in churches where, it seems to me, the focus has been taken from the Creator and replaced by the creature. This particular church is St. Patrick’s in Seattle, Washington, where this is a regular feature of their worship experience, but I am afraid this is all too common. Pope Benedict XVI wrote in The Spirit of the Liturgy, “Dancing is not a form of expression for the Christian liturgy. In about the third century, there was an attempt in certain Gnostic-Docetic circles to introduce it into the liturgy. For these people, the Crucifixion was only an appearance. Before the Passion, Christ had abandoned the body that in any case he had never really assumed. Dancing could take the place of the liturgy of the Cross, because, after all, the Cross was only an appearance. The cultic dances of the different religions have different purposes—incantation, imitative magic, mystical ecstasy—none of which is compatible with the essential purpose of the liturgy of the ‘reasonable sacrifice’.”[i]
The video below gives a sad glimpse into the reality of how bad it can be in churches where, it seems to me, the focus has been taken from the Creator and replaced by the creature. This particular church is St. Patrick’s in Seattle, Washington, where this is a regular feature of their worship experience, but I am afraid this is all too common. Pope Benedict XVI wrote in The Spirit of the Liturgy, “Dancing is not a form of expression for the Christian liturgy. In about the third century, there was an attempt in certain Gnostic-Docetic circles to introduce it into the liturgy. For these people, the Crucifixion was only an appearance. Before the Passion, Christ had abandoned the body that in any case he had never really assumed. Dancing could take the place of the liturgy of the Cross, because, after all, the Cross was only an appearance. The cultic dances of the different religions have different purposes—incantation, imitative magic, mystical ecstasy—none of which is compatible with the essential purpose of the liturgy of the ‘reasonable sacrifice’.”[i]
The Mass is the sacrifice of Christ made present again on the altar. When we are at Mass, we witness the bloody sacrifice of Calvary made present again on the altar in an unbloody manner. It is the same sacrifice; only in the manner of offering does it differ. This must be the focus of our worship—not the praise band, the cantor, the potted plant, the Star Trek banners, the silly musical numbers with verses repeated ad nauseam, and certainly not the woman playing Jesus and proclaiming the Gospel! We are at Calvary when we are at Mass, and our behavior and focus should indicate that we believe that very thing. One might recall the words of Pope Benedict XVI in regard to “religious entertainment.” He wrote, “Such attraction fades quickly—it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation.”[ii]
The strength of the Traditional Latin Mass, and the reason so many are attached to that form of the Roman rite, is because the reverence is built into the rubrics, which have changed only slightly through the centuries through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The words of the Mass, also unchanged through the centuries, convey perfectly the sacrificial nature of the Mass. The four ends of the Mass are adoration, atonement, thanksgiving, and petition, and the focus must always be on God and His eternal glory.
