By: Mons. Alberto José González Chaves
Several young priests have sent me an article, expressing their disgust and perplexity about it. Since the author didn't ring a bell and I never read that magazine, I didn't pay special attention to reading it, but due to the insistence of more clerics, especially from southeastern Spain, I ended up doing so. It was a very simple writing. It didn't worry me nor did the concern of my senders seem proportional to me: that a text of a personal nature (not theological, not even doctrinal) could foster a horizontalist understanding of the Holy Mass, as if its center resided more in the assembly than in God.
The article's assertions were always introduced by allusions to subjective experiences: "I like," "I believe," "when I pass," "I have found," "I suffer," "I enjoy." This led me to interpret it more as a psychological venting than as a pastoral teaching, offering no indications of even the slightest pretense of the latter. Nevertheless, I decided to write these lines, which do not aim to refute opinions (an infinitesimal degree of truth), and even less to discuss tastes or displeasures, but to reaffirm with serene theology what the Church has always believed about the Eucharistic Mystery: that the Mass is a sacrifice, Trinitarian worship, and the real presence of the Divine Martyr and Sacrificer of Calvary.
I. The Mass, a "code of orientation"
The Council of Trent defined with luminous clarity the nature of the august Eucharistic Sacrifice:
“In this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who once offered himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the Cross is contained and offered in an unbloody manner.” (Council of Trent, Sess. XXII, ch. II; Denz. 1743-1748).
And it added:
“This sacrifice is truly propitiatory and is offered not only for the sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other needs of the faithful who are alive, but also for those who have died in Christ.”
From this it follows that the value of the Holy Mass does not depend on the attendance of the people, although it is good and desirable that the people participate actively. What is essential is not the assembly that celebrates, but Christ who offers himself to the Father in the Holy Spirit, and in whom the Church also offers itself (cf. Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 118).
The Second Vatican Council, far from contradicting this doctrine, reaffirmed it vigorously:
“Our Savior, at the Last Supper, instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross through the centuries until he should come again.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 47).
Thus, the Christian altar is not a stage, nor a profane table, nor a meeting space, but Calvary reopened upon the earth.
The Mass is an act of Trinitarian adoration. The priest, acting in persona Christi, offers to the Father the holy Victim and, with Her, the prayers and sufferings of the entire Church. At that moment, the ultimate end of all liturgy is fulfilled: gloria Dei et sanctificatio hominum —the glory of God and the sanctification of men—. For this reason, the liturgy is, according to the last Council, the exercise of the priesthood of Christ.
This is, and no other, its true and authentic definition. If in ancient Greece leitourgía was “the work of the people”, in the Catholic Church the Sacred Liturgy is the Opus Dei:
«With good reason, then, the Liturgy is considered as the exercise of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. In it, sensible signs signify and, each in its own way, effect the sanctification of man, and thus the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ—that is, the Head and its members—exercises the public worship in its entirety. Consequently, every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of his Body, which is the Church, is the supreme sacred action par excellence, whose efficacy no other action of the Church can equal in the same title and degree» (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7).
The Holy Mass fulfills the four ends of the sacrifice:
- Thanksgiving (Eucharistia): for the redemption wrought by Christ.
- Adoration: because on the altar the worship of latria, unique and supreme, is given to God.
- Reparation: for the innocent Victim is offered for the sins of the world.
- Petition: in imploring God's mercy and grace for the living and the dead.
This sublime balance is diluted when the Mass is presented only as a “celebration of the community” or as a “public service”. In reality, the Holy Mass is the work of God, in which the people participate. It is the most exalted act that takes place each day on earth. Nothing equals it. On every altar, visible or hidden, Christ renews the sacrifice of His Love; the angels prostrate themselves; the souls in purgatory receive relief; the saints unite in praise; and redeemed humanity offers to the Father the Heart of his Son.
For this reason, the Church teaches that the Mass has infinite value, even when celebrated without the faithful: because it does not depend on human gaze, but on the operative presence of the Supreme and Eternal Priest.
When the priest pronounces the words of consecration in the silence of the altar, time stands still, Calvary becomes present, and heaven opens.
There the ultimate end of the universe is fulfilled: that God be adored and glorified in his Son by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Authentic liturgical renewal does not consist in multiplying innovations, but in turning the face toward the Lord. There is no more fruitful pastoral than an altar centered on Christ, a priest who acts in persona Christi, and a people who adore, weep for their sins, and give thanks and implore favors from the One and Triune God.
The liturgy does not need crudely witty phrases or easy derogatory metaphors. It needs silence, faith, and sacrality.
Because in the Mass the greatest thing that can happen on earth is fulfilled: «Through Him and with Him and in Him, to you, God the Father almighty, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and all glory, forever and ever. Amen.”
II. "Benedictine code"
Among the great contemporary masters of the liturgy, Benedict XVI has prophetically recalled the theocentric sense of the Eucharistic celebration. In The Spirit of the Liturgy he wrote, still as Cardinal Ratzinger:
“When priest and faithful look in the same direction—toward the Lord who is coming, toward the East—the true nature of the liturgy is expressed: not looking at each other, but walking together toward the Lord.”
This orientation, physical and spiritual, does not respond to archaeological nostalgia or outdated aestheticism, but to a theology of the Mystery: the liturgy is not a closed circle, but an opening to transcendent God.
For this reason, Pope Benedict proposed—as a gesture of balance and clarity—that even in the versus populum celebration, a large crucifix flanked by candlesticks be placed on the altar, so that the celebrant and the faithful have a common point of reference: the crucified Lord:
“The crucifix is not an ornament; it is the sign that makes the direction of worship visible. In it, common prayer is concentrated, and it reminds us that we are not facing each other, but together before Him.” (The Spirit of the Liturgy, III, 2).
This sign restores the sacrality of the altar, avoiding the priest becoming the protagonist or animator, falling into ridiculous clericalism, and gives God the central place. If the sense of this orientation is lost, the liturgy runs the risk of dissolving into an anthropocentric, horizontal, and self-referential act. In a closed circle so tedious that incessant and wandering creativities will never manage to open it.
The Christian altar is not measured by aesthetic or architectural criteria, but by its theological value: it is the threshold between heaven and earth. When the crucifix and candlesticks are placed on it, it is not seeking ornamentation, but to visibly manifest the Mystery that is celebrated there, blurring as much as possible the uncomfortable and invasive clerical personalism.
The altar is throne and tomb, table and altar, memorial and presence. There the same Christ of Golgotha is offered. Ironically calling that traditional arrangement a “barcode” denotes more ignorance than ingenuity: it is not about decorative lines, but the «geometry of the mystery». What for some is a code, for the Church is the hierarchy of the symbol: the candles, as prayers that ascend; the cross, as the axis of the reconciled universe.
III. The "corporal code" of the communicant
In recent decades, along with the simplification of altars, an equally new praxis has been introduced: that of receiving communion standing after an uncomfortable parade euphemistically and pompously called a «procession», which would be the exclusive expression of the condition of “Easter men”. (Sorry: men ¡and women!). This leads to asserting, with annoyance, that receiving communion kneeling would be an anachronism or a denial of the paschal spirit.
Such assertions lack foundation in the liturgical tradition and sacramental theology. The Church never understood kneeling as an improper sign of the risen Christian; rather, it always saw it as the supreme gesture of adoration, humility, and love before the real Presence of the Lord. And this for many centuries and until just a few decades ago and not in all churches. No one who made their First Communion in the 1960s can say they had never seen a communion rail in their life. Let us be sincere: then, and even today, in not a few parishes children (and also adults) receive communion kneeling.
“Kneeling is not servility, but an expression of redeemed freedom: he who kneels before God does not kneel before any power of the world.” (The Spirit of the Liturgy, III, 4).
The kneeling posture expresses what the tongue is silent about: the soul recognizes itself as creature before its Creator, sinner before the Redeemer, adorer before its God.
Organizing communion as a “standing procession” has a more choreographic than theological effect. Faith is not measured by bodily displacement, but by interior adoration.
The millennial tradition of the Church—of East and West—has venerated the moment of communion with gestures of prostration, silence, and recollection. The communion rail, far from being an obstacle, is an «architecture of body and soul», a line of humility where the communicant, seized by «Eucharistic stupor», in the expression of John Paul II, sees how heaven inclines over him.
It is true that the Second Vatican Council called for the actuosa participatio of the faithful. But that participation does not consist primarily in speaking or moving, but in adoring and offering oneself, uniting interiorly with the sacrifice of Christ. The great Pius XII had written it a few years earlier:
«Let all the faithful realize that their principal duty and their greatest dignity consists in participating in the Eucharistic sacrifice; and that, not with a passive and negligent spirit, wandering and daydreaming about other things, but in such an intense and active way that they are most closely united with the High Priest, according to the words of the Apostle: “You must have the same feelings in your hearts that Christ Jesus had in his”; and that they offer that sacrifice together with Him and through Him, and with Him offer themselves as well» (Mediator Dei, 99).
The liturgy, Benedict XVI said, is not an invention of the community, but a reception of the Mystery. The more one enters into silence, reverence, and contemplation, the more one truly participates. It is not a matter of “doing things”, but of letting God do them in us. The liturgy is the work of Christ; we are his witnesses and beneficiaries. And we are also the heirs, depositories, and custodians of those that some call «ancient rites that sneak in for the particular interests of a few, who impose them without respect and divide us». I prefer to think that my grandparents were not wrong.
References
- Council of Trent, Sess. XXII, Doctrine on the Sacrifice of the Mass (Denz. 1738-1759).
- Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium, nn. 47-48.
- Pius XII, Mediator Dei, nn. 99-137.
- Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ed. Cristiandad, Madrid 2001.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, nn. 1362-1372, 1410-1419.