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Catechesis on the Liturgy: Prayer before Mass, Introit and Genuflection (See following chapter in this series)
Homily
1. We live in dramatic days that challenge the Catholic Church to her roots, and with the Church, all of creation. Difficulties assail the Church on every side: pathetic catechesis, impurity of faithful and clergy alike, distressing liturgical music, church buildings which are uglier than sin and do not express the faith, dwindling numbers of seminarians and religious, clergy both disobedient and heretical at every level of ecclesial government, empty Catholic schools, and so forth. It isn’t that all hope is lost, no; but that the traces of hope which exist are very hard to find. All of these problems come to a dramatic head in the sacred liturgy. Now, it is not my style to sit around and complain about how bad things are without proposing a solution. Nor is it my style to sit around and watch the Church, the Bride of Christ – and my Bride who am a priest! – be attacked in this way without putting up a fight in which I prefer to risk everything, than to be seen by God and man as negligent in my love. I therefore wish to arm us all. To arm us against the battle shaking the Church. To dispel the lies of Satan, and to strengthen the weak of heart. One means I choose to arm us all is a prolonged and detailed meditation on the sacred liturgy of the Holy Mass. From now until the beginning of Advent, we will explore the countless details of the Mass, what they are and what they mean. So that with each detail of the Holy Mass, you may find abundant fruit for your mind and heart. And also, so that, when people ask you, “Why do you do things this way or that way at St. Joseph parish,” you are informed enough to give a response. Indeed, when some people refer to St. Joseph’s parish as old fashioned in her liturgy, a study of the documents of the Second Vatican Council and of current liturgical law will prove that we are not in the past, but we are the cutting edge, we are living up to the ideal the Church has for us all, we are where almost every other parish in this Archdiocese should want to be in liturgical practice.
2. Today I begin this extended catechesis on the Liturgy of the Mass by explaining four points: prayer before Mass, the distinction of priests and ministers and congregation, the entrance itself called the introit, and the genuflection of the priest and ministers upon entering the sanctuary. This meditation will offer great light for all.
3. Prayer before Mass. Canon Law requires this of a priest: “A priest is not to neglect to prepare himself properly through prayer for the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice and to offer thanks go God at its completion.”[1] Yet it is now habitual all around us, that the priest is expected to socialize in the door of the Church before and after Mass. If a parishioner should ever find a priest praying before or after Mass instead of shaking hands at the door, in the Protestant fashion, let him not be so proud as to say, “Father should give his time to me, not God.” Even more, how deep the unity between parishioner and pastor would be, if they founded their unity in the Eucharist, by praying before the tabernacle together before and after Mass, finding time for social intercourse at another time.
4. The priest, ministers and congregation. The Church has something called “rubrics,” small indications printed in every liturgical book that state whether the priest or the congregation should do or say one thing or another. These constitute part of liturgical law, and all Catholics are bound to obey them under pain of sin. The rubrics require the priest with the ministers to enter. They do things, many things, which the congregation at large does not. For the it is the “whole community… that celebrates”[2] the liturgy in general, but at the Mass there are functions which different parts of that community have, which are different and may not be confused. It is a “celebration,” note, and not a “service.” Priests have a special function, I’ll return to that in a moment. “Servers, readers, commentators, and members of the choir also exercise a genuine liturgical function,”[3] and that is why I encourage those who feel moved to it by the Holy Spirit to participate in these ways. But remember, to participate in the Church does not mean you have to step inside the sanctuary and “do something.” To participate in the Church, receive the sacraments, keep your mind and heart active when you do, live the virtues, and transform the secular world in preparation for the second coming of Christ.
5. The introit. The act of the priest entering the sanctuary with the ministers is called the introit. It is from the Latin, introitus. An introit antiphon or song may be sung. Therefore, every group and person who refer to this singing as a “gathering hymn” are completely mistaken. When antiphon or song is called a “gathering song,” one reduces the liturgical act to what “we” do. Yet the liturgy is something God the Holy Trinity does, not what we sinners do. God acts, the faithful participate. And the action of the priest at this point is not his own private doing. What he is doing is acting in persona Christi¸ in the person of Christ, and to the degree that he deviates from the strict norm of the Church regarding his office, in that same degree he no longer collaborates with the Trinity, but does his own thing. Honest mistakes are one thing. But priests who use their own words instead of the words prescribed for his office, priests who do things to assert themselves, priests who omit to assert the power of their office by strict fidelity to liturgical norms, priests who obstinately neglect the rubrics of Mass, commit a grave evil in the sight of God and man. The priest acts publicly in the Church in the person of Christ because they have the sacrament of holy orders. Holy orders gives them this faculty, which no one has except the priests, and which no man deserves or has a right to, except the ones whom God calls in the Church. It is both a gift and a responsibility. So it isn’t just Fr. Ward or Fr. Borkowski or Fr. Fares or whoever who enters the sanctuary. Jesus Christ himself does, mystically through the priest. Yes, that means we need to look at priests with faith; not that we make them the object of our faith, for God alone is that, but we understand who they are through God’s sacrament of Holy Orders, and this requires faith in what God has revealed through Jesus Christ. This is hard for the man of the third millennium, but especially hard for Americans. So ask God for this faith, and he will give it to you. But you need to want it to get it. By entering first the Church and then the sanctuary, the priest does what we all do when we enter the Church. He crosses a threshold, “which symbolized passing from the world wounded by sin to the world of the new Life to which all men are called. The visible church is a symbol of the Father’s house toward which the People of God is journeying and where the Father will ‘wipe every tear from their eyes.’ (Rev 21:4).”[4] This is why such care is taken of the Church. Our Altar Society puts great effort into cleaning it. We are working to raise lots of funds to maintain it. A full time maintenance man attends to the important aspects of routing upkeep. This is why, furthermore, the Church is a place for conversation with God and not conversation with one another; why it is a house of prayer and disposed to recollection; why we don’t eat or drink or play in Church; and why we use it only for the celebration of the sacraments. And by the introit, the Liturgy of the Eucharist begins, by which “the work of our redemption is accomplished.”[5]
6. Genuflection. The priests and ministers enter the sanctuary and genuflect. There are some, sad, deprived Churches, wherein the tabernacle is not in the middle, not prominent, or even hidden; and these are Churches who are built around sinful man, not centered on the Incarnate Son of God present in the Eucharist. So there, they reverence the altar with a bow. There are others who cannot genuflect for health reasons, and they also worthily bow instead of genuflecting. This is an action which, history notes, has been done for many, many centuries, by the priest who enters the sanctuary.[6] The genuflection In the old Mass, the server held the priest’s chasuble, perhaps as a sign of readiness to serve God’s will. And so we should always genuflect when passing before the blessed sacrament, who is the Living God himself.
Next week we shall discuss the fact that we meet on Sunday, the priest kisses the altar, the incensing of the altar, and the sign of the cross. May Mary and Joseph help us honor her son worthily in every liturgical celebration, Amen. |