I recently met with a student, a young African-American Catholic who is more familiar than most with the Catholic tradition. He was concerned that the church should play a more prophetic role in calling attention to contemporary social problems. As we talked, I began to sense that he saw this principally as the responsibility of church authorities, not one that devolved on all the faithful, commissioned by the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist to an active life in living out the Gospel. We might ask: How does the Eucharist address his concerns? And how can we celebrate the Eucharist in a way that supports and feeds the faithful?
The Eucharist is not simply a cultural legacy. It is more than a moving performance or a beautiful ritual symbolizing transcendence. And liturgy is more than aesthetics. The Tridentine liturgy is one cultural expression, largely for traditionalist Catholics. There are others, more sensitive to local cultures. But what I miss in many discussions of liturgy is any concern for the theology that undergirds the Eucharist, and especially for the transformative sense of mission it signifies. The appeal seemed to be more personal than communal. There was little sense for the “we” of the liturgy. The liturgical reforms of Vatican II were an effort to address that concern.
Among the criticisms of the Tridentine liturgy are that it reduced the faithful to a passive role. The liturgy was in Latin, no longer a common language. The faithful were virtually silent; they “heard” or “assisted” at Mass.” In Germany, the priest “read” the liturgy. Engaging the symbols of the liturgy was confined almost exclusively to the priest “celebrant.” He greeted the silent congregation, read the Scriptures, prayed the Eucharistic prayer, the church’s great prayer of thanksgiving (eucharistein), in a virtually inaudible tone, and distributed the sacrament. His primary role was to “confect” the Eucharist.
The members of the congregation did not share in the greeting of peace or respond to the prayers; that role was taken by two pre-adolescent boys (no girls, of course). To receive Holy Communion, they knelt at the Communion rail to be fed by the priest with the host placed on the tongue. The rail fenced off the sanctuary, the “holy place” that laypeople generally did not enter. Nor did they touch the sacred vessels. Many of the faithful accompanied the liturgy by praying their rosaries, while some followed it in missals that contained both Latin and English texts.
The council
Vatican II changed all that. One of the council’s first concerns was “the reform and promotion of the liturgy,” addressed in one of its first constitutions, “Sacrosanctum Concilium.” The bishops taught that before all else, “the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy” (No. 14). This was their fundamental principle for liturgical renewal. They added that “the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence” (No. 30). “Sacrosanctum Concilium” was approved by the bishops at Vatican II with just four dissenting votes.
One of the most significant reforms was the recovery of the theology of the liturgical assembly. Joseph Jungmann, S.J., an authority on the history of the liturgy, wrote the following about early Christianity in his book Pastoral Liturgy:
[T]he liturgy is essentially corporate public worship in which the people’s Amen resounds, as St. Jerome tells us, like a peal of heavenly thunder; there is a close connection between altar and people, a fact constantly confirmed by greeting and response, address and assent, and acknowledged in the verbal forms of the prayers, above all by the use of the plural.
Post-conciliar documents stressed that the whole assembly, not just the priest, celebrates the Eucharist. Among other sources, the “General Instruction of the Roman Missal” states that “the celebration of the Eucharist is the action of the whole church.”
As the Rev. Louis Cameli recently argued in America, participation in the Eucharist means more than taking on some liturgical role. When we join in the Eucharist, we are united with the mystery of Jesus, who offers himself to the Father for the salvation of the world, giving us a share in his victory over sin and death. The Eucharist is about mission. At the conclusion of the Mass, we, as members of Christ’s body, are sent forth with the charge, “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your lives.” We witness to the good news of the kingdom or reign of God when we express the Beatitudes in our lives.
Christ acts through his body, the church, calling Christians to a messianic discipleship and love (to use the thought of Johann Baptist Metz), revealing God as a God of compassion (Albert Nolan), making God’s presence visible in caring for one another (Edward Schillebeeckx), setting people free from oppression or dehumanizing power systems (Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza), continuing the practices of the reign of God, healing, exorcising, forgiving and teaching, working to transform society (Terrence Tilley) and taking the crucified peoples down from the cross (Jon Sobrino).
The church has a long tradition of devotion to the Eucharist. In The Spirit of the Liturgy, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger defends Eucharistic devotion, processions and the adoration of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, but he is also at pains to stress that the Eucharist is not “thing-centered,” that is, materially body and blood. He writes, “How is the Body of Christ supposed to become a ‘thing’? The only presence is the presence of the whole Christ.” This echoes the teaching of the Council of Trent. Citing Trent, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist, ‘the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained’ (CCC 1374),” recognizing that Christ’s presence is not physical but sacramental.
Tradition and revision
To help Catholics become more familiar with the greater biblical tradition, after Vatican II a lectionary was introduced with a two-year cycle for weekdays and a three-year cycle for Sunday. So successful was the lectionary that it was adopted by a number of Protestant churches.
Some unnecessary or repetitive practices were eliminated: For example, in the pre-conciliar Roman Missal, the presider made the sign of the cross more than 20 times.
Other traditional practices were reclaimed, some of which had been abandoned as devotion increasingly focused on Christ’s presence in the elements. In the early church, the faithful stood for the liturgy. The Commemoration of the Living in the Roman Canon refers to all those “standing around” the altar in a circle (omnium circumstantium); an earlier text had circum adstantes. A canon from the Council of Nicaea restricted kneeling at the Eucharist to the Easter season, but later the faithful began to kneel during the canon of the Mass.
Around 1050, under the controversy with Berengar of Tours over Christ’s Eucharistic presence, the meaning of the terms mystical body and true body was reversed. Originally “mystical body” referred to the sacramental body of the Lord, the Eucharistic elements. But influenced by the controversy, mystical body began to be used of the church, while “true body” of Christ (verum corpus) was used to refer to Christ’s presence in the sacrament. This contributed to the development of a more individualistic Eucharistic piety. The consecration and real presence became the central focus, underlined by the unhappy expression still heard today, “the miracle of transubstantiation.”
By the time the new Sacramentary of Pope Paul VI was published in 1970, the liturgy had reclaimed other traditional practices. Mass was now in the vernacular. The altar had been turned around to face the people. In a quasi-dialogue with the presider, the congregation now responded themselves to his invocations and to a new responsorial psalm added to the readings. Members of the assembly served as lectors; others brought forward the gifts of bread and wine in an “offertory procession,” and before Communion they exchanged the sign of peace with one another. The following years saw other changes. Communicants approached the altar standing, rather than kneeling at the Communion rail. Some served as “extraordinary” eucharistic ministers. For the first time since the 1100s, the chalice was returned to the laity at Communion.
Yet many scholars acknowledge that the efforts to implement the council’s reforms in the first years following the council took place too hastily, without the proper catechesis to prepare the faithful for the changes in the way they worshipped. What followed was a decade or so of experimentation, an often misdirected effort on the part of some priests to make the liturgy “more meaningful” or “inclusive.” Happily, we’ve moved beyond these “creative” liturgies of the late 70s and early 80s.
It took much longer for Rome to approve the practice of receiving Communion in the hand, the practice in both the East and the West for the first 800 years of Christianity. Cyril of Jerusalem (313-86) instructed the faithful: “Coming up to receive, therefore, do not approach with your wrists extended or your fingers splayed, but making your left hand a throne for the right (for it is about to receive a King) and cupping your palm, so receive the Body of Christ; and answer: ‘Amen’.”
Liturgically correct
Most Catholics welcomed these changes. But not all. A small group of traditionalists resisted the reforms, calling for the continued availability of the pre-Vatican II Tridentine Mass. Some rejected the council itself and went into schism, following the example of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Others wanted to remain in communion with the church and with Peter’s successor, but were vocal about their love for the traditional Latin liturgy with its beauty, reverence and sense for the transcendent.
In an effort toward reconciliation with more traditionalist Catholics, Pope John Paul II twice issued indults (in 1984 and again in 1988) to allow a limited use of the Tridentine rite. He had surveyed the world’s bishops before giving limited permission; only 1.5 percent were in favor. Pope Benedict XVI, without consulting the bishops, went much further; in 2007, he gave general permission for using the pre-conciliar Mass in “Summorum Pontificum,” issued motu proprio, terming the Tridentine rite an “extraordinary form” of the Roman rite.
His intentions were the best; he wanted to reconcile Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society of St. Pius X to the fullness of the church and hoped that the two rites might enrich each other. But the greater availability of the Tridentine liturgy helped fuel the liturgy wars, particularly in situations where it strongly contrasted with current church practices; for example, the washing of the feet in the Holy Thursday liturgy remains an all-male affair in such liturgical celebrations. For some, as Pope Francis has argued, the Tridentine liturgy became a symbol of the rejection of Vatican II itself as well as of the pope’s teachings.
Finally Pope Francis decided he had to act. After a “detailed consultation” of the bishops by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he issued on July 16, 2021, the apostolic letter “Traditionis Custodes,” restricting the celebration of the Tridentine Mass. At the end of an accompanying letter to the bishops, Pope Francis expressed regret for abuses in liturgical celebrations on all sides, adding, “I am nonetheless saddened that the instrumental use of Missale Romanum of 1962 is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions that it betrayed the Tradition and the ‘true church.’” He asked the bishops to make sure that “every liturgy be celebrated with decorum and fidelity to the liturgical books promulgated after Vatican Council II.”
It is contrary to the council to suggest that the Tridentine liturgy is superior to the post-Vatican II liturgy, ignoring the theology it exemplifies. Our present liturgy, in spite of the less than adequate 2011 translation, expresses reverence when the presider prays rather than performs. It should be celebrated with care, not rushed or be overly wordy, with multiple introductions and commentaries. A reverent liturgy incorporates time for silence. Nonverbal cues can help. Musical accompaniment should not ignore the church’s rich musical tradition.
Like the early Christians, we too encounter the risen Jesus in the breaking of the bread. We enter into the sacrament through ritual and signs. Through them the sacrament animates us. They touch both our heads and our hearts; they energize us. Baptism gives us to drink of the one Spirit (1 Cor 12:13). The Eucharist unites us as Christ’s body to share as partners in his mission. We make Christ visible when we witness to the Gospel by our lives. This is what I tried to explain to my visiting student.
