Posted on 07/06/2016 8:06:36 AM PDT by ebb tide
Speaking at a conference on the liturgy in London yesterday, Cardinal Robert Sarah, the highest authority on the topic in the Catholic Church under Pope Francis, asked all bishops and priests to adopt the ancient posture in the Mass where the priest faces the tabernacle along with the congregation, rather than facing the people. He asked that the posture be adopted by Advent of this year, which begins November 27. During the same talk, Cardinal Sarah encouraged all Catholics to receive Communion kneeling. During the talk, the Vatican’s liturgy chief revealed that Pope Francis had asked him to “continue the liturgical work Pope Benedict began.”
The announcement was immediately recognized by Catholic Herald deputy editor Dan Hitchens as “the biggest liturgical announcement since Benedict XVI’s 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum gave greater freedom for priests to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass.”
Vatican watchers are particularly stunned that Pope Francis, who is regarded by many as a liberal, has encouraged a more traditional approach to liturgy. Yet Cardinal Sarah said, “Our Holy Father Pope Francis has the greatest respect for the liturgical vision and measures of Pope Benedict.”
French Bishop Dominique Rey, who was present at the conference, took up Cardinal Sarah’s request without hesitation, vowing to at least begin to implement the change in his diocese by Advent. Rey, the Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, addressed Cardinal Sarah at the conference, saying: “In response to your appeal I wish to announce now, that certainly on the last Sunday of Advent of this year in my celebration of the Holy Eucharist at my cathedral, and on other occasions as appropriate, I shall celebrate ad orientem—towards the Lord who comes.” Bishop Rey added, “Before Advent I shall address a letter to my priests and people on this question to explain my action. I shall encourage them to follow my example.”
Cardinal Sarah gave thanks for the many celebrations of the liturgy that are devout and give glory to God, but he also lamented the many abuses of the liturgy in the Church. “In recent decades,” he observed, “we have seen many liturgical celebrations where people, personalities and human achievements have been too prominent, almost to the exclusion of God.”
Cardinal Sarah used his African heritage to drive home the point. “I am an African,” he said. “Let me say clearly: the liturgy is not the place to promote my culture. Rather, it is the place where my culture is baptised, where my culture is taken up into the divine.”
Sarah suggested that the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council intended liturgical reform to bring more of the faithful to the Mass, yet for the most part the effort has failed. “My brothers and sisters, where are the faithful of whom the Council Fathers spoke?” he asked.
The cardinal continued:
Many of the faithful are now unfaithful: they do not come to the liturgy at all. To use the words of St John Paul II: many Christians are living in a state of “silent apostasy;” they “live as if God does not exist” (Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in Europa, 28 June 2003, 9). Where is the unity the Council hoped to achieve? We have not yet reached it. Have we made real progress in calling the whole of mankind into the household of the Church? I do not think so. And yet we have done very much to the liturgy! He expressed “profound grief” at the “many distortions of the liturgy throughout the Church today,” and proposed that the “Eucharist is too great a gift to tolerate ambiguity and depreciation.”
One such abuse he mentioned was when priests “step aside to allow extraordinary ministers distribute Holy Communion” which for many priests was thought to be a way of allowing lay people to participate in the Mass in a substantial way. Rather, said Cardinal Sarah, “This is wrong, it is a denial of the priestly ministry as well as a clericalisation of the laity.”
“When this happens it is a sign that formation has gone very wrong, and that it needs to be corrected,” he added.
He encouraged a generous reception of the traditional Latin Mass and also encouraged traditional practices Pope Benedict proposed previously, including the use of Latin in the new Mass, kneeling for Holy Communion, as well as Gregorian chant. “We must sing sacred liturgical music not merely religious music, or worse, profane songs,” he said. “The Council never intended that the Roman rite be exclusively celebrated in the vernacular. But it did intend to allow its increased use, particularly for the readings.”
Speaking of kneeling for Holy Communion, the Vatican liturgy chief reminded priests that they are forbidden from denying Communion to the faithful for kneeling for reception of the Sacrament. Moreover, he encouraged all to receive while kneeling where possible. “Kneeling at the consecration (unless I am sick) is essential. In the West this is an act of bodily adoration that humbles us before our Lord and God. It is itself an act of prayer. Where kneeling and genuflection have disappeared from the liturgy, they need to be restored, in particular for our reception of our Blessed Lord in Holy Communion.”
A lengthy section of his talk was devoted to calling priests and bishops to celebrate Mass facing “ad orientem” or with the people facing Our Lord. Here are the key excerpts:
Even though I serve as the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, I do so in all humility as a priest and a bishop in the hope that they will promote mature reflection and scholarship and good liturgical practice throughout the Church.
I want to make an appeal to all priests… I believe that it is very important that we return as soon as possible to a common orientation, of priests and the faithful turned together in the same direction—Eastwards or at least towards the apse—to the Lord who comes, in those parts of the liturgical rites when we are addressing God… I think it is a very important step in ensuring that in our celebrations the Lord is truly at the centre.
And so, dear Fathers, I ask you to implement this practice wherever possible, with prudence and with the necessary catechesis, certainly, but also with a pastor’s confidence that this is something good for the Church, something good for our people.
Your own pastoral judgement will determine how and when this is possible, but perhaps beginning this on the first Sunday of Advent this year… may be a very good time to do this. Dear Fathers, we should listen again to the lament of God proclaimed by the prophet Jeremiah: “they have turned their back to me” (2:27). Let us turn again towards the Lord!
I would like to appeal also to my brother bishops: please lead your priests and people towards the Lord in this way, particularly at large celebrations in your dioceses and in your cathedral. Please form your seminarians in the reality that we are not called to the priesthood to be at the centre of liturgical worship ourselves, but to lead Christ’s faithful to him as fellow worshippers. Please facilitate this simple but profound reform in your dioceses, your cathedrals, your parishes and your seminaries. Throughout the talk, Cardinal Sarah stressed the grave responsibility of priests regarding the Eucharist. “We priests, we bishops bear a great responsibility,” he said. “How our good example builds up good liturgical practice; how our carelessness or wrongdoing harms the Church and her Sacred Liturgy!”
He warned his fellow priests, “Let us beware of the temptation of liturgical sloth, because it is a temptation of the devil.”
This should have been a caucus thread.
If this is accurate, it is the best news I have heard from Rome since the election of the Red Pope.
Anyone can read the entire passage and understand what Christ taught. In contrast to what the Samaritan woman believed about place of worship, and in contrast to what Jews taught, Christ taught that worship is not geographical or following ritual. It is about worshipers who worship in spirit and in truth.
It's funny how evangelicals are all for "Christian liberty," unless it's the liberty to worship the way the Catholic church has worshipped for 2000 years. *That* liberty isn't allowed, and adding *that* particular proscription to the Bible is apparently perfectly acceptable.
The Catholic Church has not worshiped that way for 2,000 years. You will look in vain to find a 2,000 year history of facing east - or many other aspects of worship.
Are you free to face any direction - N, S, E, W? Absolutely. It is, however, not a Biblical teaching. That is the discussion.
And there you have a false justification for mirroring paganism and claiming to worship God. I could not have said it better.
If you can’t tell the difference between directing such things to a demon and directing them to the Triune God, I would suggest that you have very little of substance to contribute to this thread.
Direction is not the only issue in Scripture.
Oh, for the depth and height, and heft and pivot, the vibe and wiggle and shudder and click, and the exhilaration and trance of poetry -— my dear aMPU. You say “it’s a metaphor” as if that’s a bad thing. As if you were flicking away a bit of lint.
No. I am saying it is a metaphor and by definition is not meant to be a complete or perfect representation.
It is a way of expressing the unfamiliar by comparison to the familiar. It does not mean the two are identical in every way.
A metaphor is a trope or figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something in common. Adjective: metaphorical.A metaphor is said to express the unfamiliar (the tenor) in terms of the familiar (the vehicle). When Neil Young sings, "Love is a rose," "rose" is the vehicle for "love," the tenor. (In cognitive linguistics, the terms target and source are roughly equivalent to tenor and vehicle.)
(Sigh) And then we graduated into middle school!
I had to truncate the original title, let alone attach Catholic Caucus to it.
“What confuses me is he speaking of doing this within parts of the Novus Ordo mass?”
The New Mass, when issued, was understood to include ad orientem. http://atxcatholic.com/index.php/2016/03/popular-misconceptions-catholic-mass-part-ii-ad-orientem/#.V31yC7grLIU
Well, friend, if we are going to discuss what a metaphor is and is not, we need a definition. I pointed out simply that because it was a metaphor, you could not make a complete comparison on additional details.
If you could rightly do this, than Christ claiming to be the Bread of Life could mean so many more things that what He actually meant.
I am not afraid in the least to “mirror paganism” when the pagans were right. Neither was St. John when he wrote “en arche en o logos”, neither was St. Paul in the Areopagus, and neither was C.S. Lewis.
What I am afraid to do is to mirror Christians when they are wrong. Especially about the liturgy.
(Scratching the old coconut meditatively.) But I didn’t see anybody who was actually misunderstanding what a metaphor is. However, a good definition is always welcome, so thank you.
Just wait till the Catholic hits high school. Then they’ll understand. :)
Paganism isn't right.
Neither was St. John when he wrote “en arche en o logos”
Unless you are stating that God's inspired Words in Genesis are pagan, I'm at a loss to make any sense of that statement.
neither was St. Paul in the Areopagus,
Paul was having a discussion and referenced one of the gods who was referred to as unknown. He was not inviting pagans into the Church to continue pagan worship.
There is no inspired liturgy.
I guess as long as you’re not having Mass at the North or South Pole, it should be do-able. :-)
Being in space might present a challenge, too.
I understand but I am so sick of every time I try to read anything on here to do with the Church I have to read through garbage from people who aren’t Catholic.
I guess if it’s not a caucus thread anymore I won’t bother. I’ll just go read the original article.
I understand. But sometimes we have to leave it to God to separate the wheat from the cockle. See Matthew 13:24-30; Douay-Rheims
However, GIRM 299 (as well as the USSCB Guidelines for church buildings Built of Living Stones which references this article) does state clearly that “[t]he altar should be built apart from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible.” emphasis mine
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