From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
After a black mass or an occult rite occurs that consecrates the sanctuary of a Catholic Church to Lucifer (heaven forbid), but before that sacred space has been reconsecrated and restored for Catholic use, what would be the consequences of a Mass that was celebrated in that same sanctuary? Would the Mass still be valid?
Were a church to be mistreated like that, desecrated, before the space is used for liturgical worship again it ought to be re-consecrated.
If, by chance, that doesn’t happen, re-consecration, and Mass is celebrated in that place, there is no question that the Mass would be valid.
The true celebrant of every Mass is the High Priest, Jesus, Son of God. Christ is not thwarted by the “Prince of this world”. As the Lord says, the Enemy has nothing on Him (John 14:30).
When the ordained priest, alter Christus, acting in Christ’s person, in persona Christi, says the words of consecration over bread and wine, the wonderous change of transubstantiation takes place. The two-fold consecration separates the Body and Blood. The priest consumes both species of the Eucharist. The Sacrifice is renewed.
There is nothing that the enemy can do to change that or thwart that, short of some sort of demonic party trick to distract the priest.
The Mass, even in a desecrated place, would be valid.
I am more and more concerned about the lack of awareness that many Catholic priests and bishops seem to have about the supernatural battle that is being waged around us and about the real difference between, for example, invocative and constitutive blessings, the transcendent and immanent, the sacred and the profane.
There are sacred – sacred – things, places and people. Sacred means that they have been removed by constitutive blessings and by consecrations from the realm of the “Prince of this world” and handed over to the King. Sacred does not necessarily mean “better” in a worldly sense. Ordination to the priesthood, which makes a man a sacred person, doesn’t confer on him greater intelligence or strength, etc. Sacred means that the person (priests and consecrated religious) or places (churches, cemeteries) or things (chalices, rosaries, vestments, bells, etc.) are now set apart for the service of God.
One of the dire effects of Modernism that pervades every level of the Church right now, involves a need constantly to try to reduce the supernatural to the natural, to discount the sacred and bring it into the profane or secular. “Profane”, as an opposite of sacred, doesn’t mean “bad”. It means “not sacred”, in the sense that it is not consecrated. It still belongs to the world. It is “pro+fanum … outside the fanum, the temple“. Something that is sacred is dedicated to the service of God. The profane is still under the domination of the “Prince”. That doesn’t mean that thing is “evil”. And there are sacred persons and places and things that are used for evil purposes. The sad horror is that living sacred beings, such as priests who do not lose their consecration, can be true agents of evil… a horrible distortion of the sacred. Misuse of the sacred is “profanation”.
Sometimes when I look around at what is going on, I read the news about churchy issues, I wonder if any of the movers and shapers have a sense anymore – if they had it at all – of the spiritual realm and the battle that is perpetually going on, between the faithful holy angels and the fallen apostate angels. I look at how Mass is celebrated, consider the music and the vestments and the comportment of all involved (especially manifested in the ars celebrandi of the priest or bishop) and wonder if they have any notion of the sacred and the profane, the transcendent and immanent.
Quite a lot of Catholics today are mired in what might be called Immanentism Lite. It’s not that they deny the transcendent. They just don’t ever think about it. If pushed, they will sort of get the idea that there is a difference. But they’ve never been led to think about it. Why would they?
Think about what they see in their churches on Sundays, the catechesis they had, the sermons they’ve heard, the news stories about corrupt priests and bishops, mad and even plainly idolatrous antics at the highest levels.
Do they get a sense of the sacred from all of that?
No wonder Traditional Catholics are the most marginalized demographic in the Church. They and what they want give a large number of our leaders the willies: they fear what they don’t grasp.
There is obviously a spectrum of awareness of the sacred and the profane, transcendent and immanent.
Back to the question.
Would Mass be valid in a church so desecrated? Yes. However, lingering problems would more than likely remain, probably to manifest themselves “sideways”, as it were, in and around the place.
This would be the case if the church were tiny and humble St. Ipsidipsy in Tall Tree Circle or St. Peter’s Basilica on the Vatican Hill.
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Great answer.
The validity of the celebration of the Sacrament is not a function of the personal piety of the celebrant.
Nor the piety of place
In these dark and crazy times, should we perhaps periodically re-consecrate churches, in case some sacrilege has taken place within their precincts that hasn’t been found out?
Thanks Fr. Z.
“One of the dire effects of Modernism that pervades every level of the Church right now involves a need constantly to try to reduce the supernatural to the natural, to discount the sacred and bring it into the profane or secular. “Profane”, as an opposite of sacred, doesn’t mean “bad”. It means “not sacred”, in the sense that it is not consecrated.”
“Sacred does not necessarily mean “better” in a worldly sense…Sacred means that the person (priests and consecrated religious) or places (churches, cemeteries) or things (chalices, rosaries, vestments, bells, etc.) are now set apart for the service of God.”
Regarding sacred and profane, yesterday at the Register an article by Ed Pentin titled…”Catholic Perspectives in Short Supply at Vatican Health Conference.” The Conference was titled…”Exploring the Mind, Body and Soul.” The “Founder and President” of Cura describes this conference as the “Davos of healthcare.”
Any manifestations in the Pauline Chapel?
The contents of the video are yet another example of the feminization of the Church. Hard to imagine new vocations being inspired by such a spectacle….
I looked into this song, and it was written by a 24 year old in Zulu but has become a huge international sensation. There are hundreds of videos showing people doing this dance, police stations particularly. I have seen Catholic parishes doing it outside, never in the church. Does it mean anything that as the world hurls closer to perdition daily, millions of people, many of whom do not know the meaning of the lyrics, are drawn to this simple reality. Our home is not here, we need help getting to our true home, don’t leave us behind, save us.
Is there anything to be learned from this?
Jerusalema ikhaya lami (Jerusalem is my home)
Ngilondoloze, uhambe nami (Save me, and walk with me)
Zungangishiyi lana (Do not leave me here) (Repeat)
Ndawo yami, ayikho lana (My place, is not here)
Mbuso wami, awukho lana (My kingdom, is not here)
Ngilondoloze, uhambe nami (Preserve me, and go with me) (Repeat)
Ngilondoloze (Save me)
Ngilondoloze (Preserve me)
Ngilondoloze (Guard me)
Zungangishiyi lana (Do not leave me here) (Repeat)
Ndawo yami, ayikho lana (My place, is not here)
Mbuso wami, awukho lana (My kingdom, is not here)
Ngilondoloze, uhambe nami (Save me, and walk with me) (Repeat)
Jerusalema ikhaya lami (Jerusalem is my home)
Ngilondoloze, uhambe nami (Preserve me, and go with me)
Zungangishiyi lana (Do not leave me here) (Repeat)
Ngilondoloze (Save me)
Ngilondoloze (Preserve me)
Ngilondoloze (Guard me)
Zungangishiyi lana (Do not leave me here) (Repeat)
I was once told by the late Fr. John O’Connor that the thing to do if you see dancing at Mass is to get up and walk out. So-called “liturgical dance,” he told me, was condemned by the Vatican and would actually invalidate the Mass; to participate in such a Mass would be nothing less than sacrilege.
When I saw that video and blatantly defiant disrespect for Our Lord, my eyes and ears felt like they were violently assaulted by a rusty nail dipped in the Novus Ordo equivalent of oragutan diarrhea.
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JakeMC,
I strongly disagree that such liturgical “dance” would invalidate the mass.
Adding abit more to what Seeker earlier reported: The decidedly less-than-transcendent ‘Jerusalema challenge’ dance video was filmed after the Easter Mass celebrated at the village church in Inzing in the Austrian Tirol. The internet site ‘Katholische Kirche Österreich’ reported that (translated from the German), “The dance was rehearsed on the initiative of the two of the older Altar Boys within an hour and was performed at the Easter Vigil after the resurrection service, according to Pastor Scheiring. “It was just a matter of expressing joy. When is this better than Easter?””
(ref.: https://www.katholisch.at/aktuelles/133928/jerusalema-tanz-bescherte-tiroler-pfarre-250.000-internet-zugriffe). It is my personal belief that any activities taking place within a House of God should reflect the sacred state of that holy place; whether before, during or after Mass should be irrelevant to the deportment of those standing before God.
I watched the shanagins performed at this Mass the other day on Taylor Marshall and cannot recall being so enraged in years. Being left utterly speechless I can’t imagine what I would have been provoked to do should I have been present for the obscenity. Magnifying the grotesque was the clapping of the congregants. I fear we are lost.
RobinDelage says,
Nor the piety of place.
People can be pious but not places.
Regarding the video above.
A New Age conditioning technique, it’s been around for decades, is ASC or Altered States of Consciousness. ASC can be employed for “esoteric channeling,” it can also be employed to condition the mind to prefer the profane over the sacred.
Briefly, ASC relies on repetitious drums and chanting; repetitious and swirling body movements; captivating or entrancing light shows (e.g. the Vatican’s 2015 “Fiat Lux” light show); audience passivity followed by manipulation which leads to forced acceptance and forced participation which the mind may process as voluntary; programming the mind to prefer entertainment and a generic exhilarated mental state over contemplation and reverence.