Active Participation at Holy Mass: Truths and Counterfeits
Too many to count are the depredations foisted upon the Roman Liturgy in the last half-century. Many of them perpetrated under the guise of a more “active participation” in the Mass. Liturgists made it seem as though they had discovered some New Sparking Truth heretofore unknown to the Catholic Church, like unearthing a new Dead Sea scroll. This mendacity must stand in line with all the others that this nouveau riche clique thrust upon an unsuspecting Church, such as Holy Mass versus populum, Holy Communion received standing and in the hand, the iconoclastic rearrangement and denuding of Catholic Churches (that one, under the guise of “noble simplicity”). Must I go on? Properly formed Catholics saw through these deceptions and waged a heroic battle against them. But “active participation” deserves special attention. When Saint Pope Pius X enjoined Catholics to “not pray at Mass, but pray the Mass” he was repeating the ageless admonition of the Church. Neglect of the teaching was never the fault of the Mass, but the fault of those attending the Mass. As one newcomer to the ancient Mass once remarked, “after It, I was exhausted. It required such intense participation”. Not only are deep supernatural Mysteries revealed here, but even deeper metaphysical ones involving the human person.
Imagine for a moment a mother keeping vigil near the bed of her ill child. Or a Bach devotee listening to a concert of his master’s music in immobile attention. Or a woman riveted to a movie’s tragic ending as tears roll down her cheeks. Each one of the people in these instances is at the peak intensity of human action. No words are being spoken, no action being performed, no movement taking place. Yet, though each person is brimming with activity, the eye sees no physical activity at all. All of it is happening interiorly, hidden; however, an observer can spot it instantly.
Such clear common sense is a necessary condition for any understanding what the Church means when she asks Catholics to “participate fully” in the Holy Mass. Any true human “participation” requires essentially one thing: understanding. Unless a man accompanies an action with a sufficient “understanding” no real human action can take place. The more profound the understanding, the more perfect the action. When little or no understanding is occurring, we criticize by saying, “he’s just going through the motions”.
Actions without understanding are empty and hollow. This is why external actions depend upon and follow from internal motions. If they do not, a man becomes a marionette. So it is that common sense (and philosophers as well) asserts that what men first do “inside” (understanding) is far superior to what man does “outside” (physical activities).
But what does this have to do with Holy Mass? Everything. Men are the ones who participate at Mass, not angels. In fact, man’s salvation depends upon it. The depth of participation is the measure of grace received. Maximum active participation at Mass is accomplished when the mind is fully engaged in conversation with God, and the will involved in making acts of love. Clearly, those two kinds of acts (understanding and love) can reach breathtaking pitch, and no one be the wiser. That is because what is happening to the Catholic is happening deep within his soul. Only that pleases God. Only that is “active participation”. Of course, as with any human acts, oftentimes they are expressed in physical acts. Husbands kiss their wives; audiences applaud for the orchestra; people wave goodbye to their friends. Physical signs are the spillover of abundant interior acts. But they are only spillover.
A Catholic’s “active participation” at Holy Mass is principally his acts of adoration: genuflection, kneeling, bowing, striking of the breast, folding of the hands, the sign of the cross, standing, and sitting. Occasionally the understanding and love of the soul expresses itself in secondary signs like singing and responses. Notice the order of the signs. Especially notice the order of outward signs to interior acts. The Traditional Mass follows these orders precisely. In doing that, it respects man’s nature and leaves room for a perfect intimacy with God.
The phrase of Saint Teresa of Avila in her Autobiography is telling. She writes: “I would die for even the smallest rubric of the Holy Mass”. This celebrated mystic was not merely rendering tribute to her love for the Mass, but disclosing a perfect balance between interior oblation and external expression. The highest regions of prayer must always be grounded in and proceed from the rich ensemble of signs, traditions, and customs that constitute the supernatural armature of the Holy Church. Union with God does not detach souls from the Church’s millennial liturgical and devotional life, but immerses them ever more deeply in that life. Many a heretical movement owes itself to a denial of that doctrinal premise. Look no further than the first century Gnostics, fifth century Manichees, twelfth century Albigensians and, of course Joachim of Fiore and his “Eternal Gospel”. This false understanding does not peter out in the Middle Ages, it seeps into the twentieth century in the later Thomas Merton and the wide movement today of a quasi-Buddhist “spirituality” currently infecting not a few Trappist and Benedictine monasteries. A cursory glance at the National Catholic Reporter will show their pages filled with advertisements of so-called Spirituality Centers, all of them cloaking this hoary heresy of God without the Church.
Thus an ironclad law: Any human communication, whether with God or man, is empty without its first beginning deep within the soul and is sterile without telling about itself in proper signs. Two images suggest themselves to Catholics as models of active participation at Holy Mass: Saint Luke’s publican and the Mother of God.
The publican in Saint Luke’s Gospel (18:10-14) you may recall, is contrasted by Our Lord with the Pharisee. Both publican and Pharisee are praying in the Temple. The Pharisee is standing in the very front, speaking aloud of how good a man he is. The publican is at the darkest back corner of the temple, “standing afar off… not so much as lift(ing) up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’” Our Lord immediately bursts into remarkable praise of the publican saying, “I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other.”
However, Our Lady is the most perfect example of “active participation”. She attends the First Mass, Our Lord’s suffering and death on Calvary. Look at what she is doing. Look again. Apparently nothing. No speaking, no physical movements, no moving about. She stands looking at her Son; He looking at her. Both transfixed in perfect acts of love. No need to look further for the meaning of “active participation”. Other human acts of love after Our Lady’s on Calvary are only faint copies. She seemed to be doing nothing, but was actually doing everything.
Please, let us follow Mother Church’s command to “fully participate” at Holy Mass. Let us never forget the perfect way to do that: Imitate Our Lady.
Christmas 2018
