Dear Rev. Know it all,

I've got a question concerning either the celebration of the Mass or the Sacrifice of the Mass. I attend both a Novus Ordo Mass and the traditional Latin Mass. Personally, I lean more toward the Latin Mass, but there are aspects of both the Novus Ordo and Latin Mass that I love. In the Latin Mass, I've always heard them refer to it as "The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass," but at Novus Ordo they've always said "The Celebration of the Mass." Which one is it? I realize that the Mass is the un-bloody re-enactment of Christ's sacrifice for us, but I've never heard it put that way at a Novus Ordo Mass. Please help...  

Frank N. Senz

Dear Frank,

As to your essential question, “is the Mass a sacrifice  or a celebration?” the simple answer is “yes.”  First let’s define “celebration.” It’s a Latin word that means the a gathering, especially in honor of the gods.”  That certainly could apply to the Eucharist. It is the highest gathering in honor of the one true God. Now, what does sacrifice mean?  It, too,  is a Latin word that combines two words, “facere” to make and “sacer,” “holy or given over to the gods.”  In the old days, I would have been called the celebrant of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We believed back then that the Mass was both gathering and offering. We still do. It is not celebration or sacrifice. It is the celebration of the sacrifice. It is a coming together of the people of God for the specific purpose of offering sacrifice to God, not for example to play bingo or have a book discussion. It is a unique gathering for a very specific purpose, namely to offer the sacrifice of Calvary. You use a word in your original question that underlies the problem, when you write that “I realize that the mass is the un-bloody re-enactment of Christ’s sacrifice for us.....”   Herein lies a big part of the problem, It ain’t a re-enactment. It’s the real thing.  I remember a sound man who was setting up for some grand Eucharistic celebration who presented me with a microphone and asked, “do you want me to put this on the stage?”  I was about to launch into a catechesis about the Eucharist, but looking at him I realized that he had learned most of his theology from Sesame Street. I just sighed and said, “Yes, put it on the stage.”  The Mass is not a passion play, it is not a teaching moment, it is not a show or a discussion and it is not a re-enactment. It is a re-presentation, not a representation. Every celebration of the Mass re-presents the one eternal sacrifice of Calvary. St Paul says that “I make up in my body that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.”  What could be lacking in the sufferings of Christ? Simply this: the sacrifice of the Cross happened about two thousand years ago in Jerusalem. It needs to happen here in Frostbite Falls, and in the town where you live. Why? So that I can be nailed to the Cross with Him, who is the same yesterday today and forever. He is timeless and His sacrifice is eternal.  My participation is all that is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. Remember that the word “sacrament” means oath to the death.

I often tell the story of a group of Christians in Stalinist Russia who gathered quietly in a barn to hold a prayer meeting. In the middle of their service, two soldiers with rifles walked in and said that they were there to execute any Christians who were present. All who were not Christians were free to leave. Not one person moved. The soldiers fell weeping to their knees and said “We want to be Christians too. We just needed to find some real Christians to receive us.” 

To take Holy Communion is to say that if some maniac enters the church and says I am going to kill all the Christians here, you would be one of the ones who stayed. To receive Holy Communion is to say that I believe that Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Mary eternally lays down his life on the altar of the cross.

In receiving His flesh and blood, I pledge myself to live for Him and if need be, to die for Him. I complete the sacrifice by joining myself to it.  That’s why the bishop, then the priest then the deacon and other ministers receive communion before the congregation and that’s why they wear the odd ancient Roman clothing. They are in effect saying, “shoot me first!” (Don’t laugh. It’s happened. I remember an incident not long ago when a lunatic killed a number of monks at a Mass. He knew just who to shoot. They were the ones with the odd clothing.)

I remember a while back in the “deep-as-a-puddle era” of post-conciliar liturgical thought that it was very trendy for the ministers of Communion to receive the Eucharist after the congregation. After all, it isn’t very polite when you have a party, to serve yourself first and then your guests. The arrogance of it! To think that this is a party, that it is MY party and that these are in any way my guests!  It isn’t a party. It is a sacrificial oath. “Here you sign the covenant and sacrifice your life, then I, the priest will sign it later.”

Good Lord! Sometimes the Martha Stewart School of Liturgy amazes me. Cactus and purple drapery everywhere, but not a shred of sense. In English, celebration implies something that involves champagne and noise makers. In Latin, it implies a sacred assembly, not a rock concert. I remember hearing the story of a priest at Notre Dame University, back in the good old days of “roll your own, smoke your own” liturgy. In the spirit of “celebration” he substituted M&M’s for bread at Mass, and at Communion he threw the M&M’s to the assembled communicants. Thank all that is holy that no one can actually consecrate M&M’s. Slowly, we Catholics are remembering who we are and what the Mass is.

If all this is true, that the Mass always was and still is the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, where did all the confusion come from? Two words: Annibale Bugnini. Fr. Bugnini was appointed by Pope Pius XII as secretary to the Commission for Liturgical Reform. It was only natural that Pope Paul VI appointed him head of the Consilium (Council) for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy. In 1975 Pope Paul, rather suddenly and somewhat mysteriously, dissolved the Consilium and sent Archbishop Bugnini as his representative to Iran.

A little more about Buignini. In 1965, he was quoted by the Vatican newspaper, “L’Osservatore Romano,” as saying “We must strip...from the Catholic Liturgy everything which can be a shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren....the Protestants...” Way back around 1520, Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism had decided that Mass was not a sacrifice, because the Bible says Christ died once and for all. Martin decided that Mass could therefore not be a sacrifice. He didn’t seem to understand that “once and for all” can just as well mean “eternally and ceaselessly” as Christians had believed for one thousand, five hundred years.

Bugnini reasoned that, if Luther and the Protestants said that Mass was not a real sacrifice, then we would just have to agree with them for the sake of getting along. In 1972 he also proposed that we improve the Rosary by taking out most of the words that were not from the Bible.  To which proposal Pope Paul responded, in effect, “Are you out of your mind?”  In short, Bugnini was a sola scriptura (Bible only) Catholic. Martin Luther was also a “Bible only” Catholic.

The 70's was a very strange time. I remember it well. The Bible was taken completely out of its historical context. The Church has always taught the Bible and guarded it, but the Bible cannot stand alone. Protestantism has broken down into thousands upon thousands of sects, each one claiming to have the true interpretation of the text. In the name of reform, Bugnini would have plunged the Catholic Church into the same chaos, and we are only now beginning to recover from the brief era of “Bible only” Catholicism. You cannot separate the Bible and the Church. To do so is a recipe for disaster.

In his first draft of the new Roman Missal, (a Missal is the book from which the words and prayer of the mass are read) Bugnini redefined the Mass and tried to remove the concept of true sacrifice. A number of bishops, among them old Cardinal Ottaviani, intervened, and Pope Paul refused to publish that version of the Missal and insisted that the old Roman Canon, which emphasizes the sacrificial nature of the Mass be included in the Missal. (the Canon is the central prayer of the Mass, containing Jesus’ words at the Last Supper) Bugnini had wanted to completely suppress the old Roman Canon, which had been the only canon allowed in the old Missal. Had Bugnini been allowed to have his way, the Catholic Church would probably have ceased to be Catholic.

I love the so called “Novus Ordo” (New Order) of Mass. I also love the old “Tridentine” (Tridentium is the Latin name for Trent, Italy, hence anything Tridentine comes from the Council of Trent, though the “old” Mass developed slowly and is substantially the way Mass was said in the first centuries after Christ.)

Where was I? Oh, yes. Personally I love the new Mass. Still, there is a problem with the new Mass. The new Mass as Pope Paul published it is designed for a very holy priest and a very holy congregation.  It is hard to resist the temptation to ham it up a bit when you are staring at a thousand people. I remember attending a funeral at which the celebrant oozed with emotion and ad-lib. I so wanted to sneak up to the altar, tug on his chasuble, and remind him that the guest of honor was in the coffin! In the old Mass, father faced the altar and we didn’t have to put up with his theatrics. Good Grief! Sometimes you wonder if you’re at Mass or at a game show. “The Lord be with YOU!!!” It sounds like Bob Barker saying, “COME ON DOWN!!! 

In my youth, I was great ad-libber, but slowly, the Holy Spirit has gotten the better of me and I realize that it is arrogance to try to improve on the text. I also have learned to say old Mass, which was the Mass of my youth, and have come to love it very much. I remember thinking after my first Tridentine Mass, “Well, this is Mass for grown ups!” The Holy Spirit in his Wisdom has provided something accessible for our times in the new Mass.  Also in Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, through the ministry of Pope Benedict, has made the old Mass available to remind us of the eternal and sacred character of the Holy Sacrifice. One is not better than the other. One might speak to you more deeply than the other, but they are both still the un-bloody sacrifice of Calvary, made present in the world today. There you have it. I hope this helps. 

Sincerely,

the Rev. Know-it-all