From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
I have a question about “active participation”.
The priest that used to service my SSPX chapel was very adamant about is using a missal to follow and pray the Mass. He added that it wouldn’t be necessary if you were fluent in Latin.
When I mentioned this in a Trad Facebook group, a couple people mentioned the old school “say the Rosary” during Mass and expressed respectful disagreement with Father.
We all know the line about “active participation” concerning the vernacular of the Novus Ordo. But this is the first time I heard it applied as such to the Vetus Ordo.
In your opinion, is Father correct in his insistence on using the missal to pray the VO?
The concept of “full, conscious and actual/active” participation expressed in Sacrosanctum Concilium did not leap full-grown like Athena from the heads of the Council Fathers. The call for deeper participation grew up all through the time of the 20th century’s “Liturgical Movement” and before. Long before the Council and Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, Pius X and Pius XI were urging people to more outward participation as an aid to their interior engagement. Pius XII also had his crack at it, although late in his pontificate in a document on music we were instructed that the highest form of active participation at Mass is the reception of Communion in the state of grace. Reception… sounds passive, right? It isn’t! When the mind is engaged and the heart is straining forward toward the moment you are actively receptive. There’s nothing passive about it!
The use of a “hand missal” is really helpful, particularly for those who have a hard time remembering something for more than a quarter hour. This is why I constantly suggest that people start looking at the readings and other texts of Mass with a good hand missal or other source on THURSDAY, refreshing every day till Sunday. On Sunday, you will be able to hear what you learned over the last few days even as the Latin is being sung. Sure, the reading is being said or sung in Latin. So? You’ve familiarized yourself with it for days before hand. Sure, take the missal along. Then, review what you heard on Sunday each day through Wednesday and start over. Vernacular is being read? Okay… repetita iuvant. Fluent in Latin or not… prepare.
One thing we have to remember about the readings at Mass, which is especially evident in the Vetus. The readings are also sacrifices being raised on high to the Father. The Word is being raised upward. This is why the priest has to read them and why they are read at the altar even if they are sung by subdeacon and deacon or read in the vernacular. This is also why they should be read in a sacral language, for us in the Latin Church – Latin. This sacrificial sense is stripped from the Novus Ordo, which, along with the multiplication of readings, gives the whole first part of Mass, the “liturgy of the Word” a didactic feeling. While there is certainly room for and an element of didacticism in liturgy it is not by any stretch of the imagination the primary element.
(I’ll wager that quite a few priests trained in more recent times who say the Vetus Ordo don’ realize that the readings are also sacrifice.)
It is right that we should be urged to engage with our minds and hearts, focused and commanded by our wills, in the words and gestures of Holy Mass, either in the Novus Ordo or in the Vetus Ordo. Frankly, the Vetus Ordo is in many ways even richer than the Novus, even though there isn’t the legendary variety of Scripture in the Vetus as the Novus. If you can do this without the aid of a book or sheet, great! If the book helps, great! If you want to pray the Rosary, great! Maybe a little less great, but… prayer is prayer. It’s just that the Mass is for us Catholics the “fons et culmen… source and summit” of our Catholic identity.
Every word and gesture of the sacred liturgy, especially Holy Mass, is CHRIST acting and speaking. As Head, He speaks in the person of the priest. As Body He speaks through the congregation. When they speak and act together, such as the moment of Communion, Head and Body are manifestly one, Christus Totus, in that sublime, mysterious moment.
The rites are our rites. We are our rites. They shape us. We have our identity also from them.
As a baptized person you have a real share in Christ’s priesthood. That share isn’t like that of the ordained priest, but it is real. It enables you to offer pleasing sacrifice to God.
Knowing that you share in the priesthood of Christ, knowing that every word is Christ, knowing what you are going to be presented on Sunday, prepare well so that you can with your whole mind and heart under the guidance of your will actively receive everything that Christ wants to give you through the sacred rites of His Church.
I will never say that it is a bad thing to say the Rosary during Mass. As a matter of fact, sometimes that is just the right thing to do. However, most of the time we are offered the opportunity for a fuller engagement, not just with the Lord at Communion (or maybe not if you are not in the state of grace), but in the whole beautiful formulary of Mass for the day, part of a seasonal cycle or a saint’s day.
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Father Z,
Thank you so much for this answer.
I’ll begin reading my missal in advance. So simple yet so effective.
Actually, your answer is almost making me want to begin studying ecclesiastical Latin!
How much I use the missal depends on whether it’s sung High Mass or Low Mass. During High Mass I prefer to use the missal just for the propers and my favorite prayers out of the Ordinary of the Mass (the Munda Cor Meum and the Hanc Igitur are two). The rest of the time I prefer to watch what is going on at the altar, because there are many things going on at once, and the actions also communicate truths of the Faith. The Mass is not merely a thing of words! During Low Mass I follow the missal more, because there is less to see, and so that is a good opportunity to soak in more of the Ordinary of the Mass.
“legendary variety” nearly made me spit out my coffee.
The diversity of opinions around “what is active participation” is in fact what made me fall in love with the Vetus Ordo. Some days I feel like “plugging in” to the readings and soaking my mind in the scriptures; other days, mood dependent, all I can muster is a stream of “Lord have mercy on me” or something similar. The Vetus Ordo allows me to *be* myself as I truly am in the moment: happy, sad, angry, tired, etc.
This is not even to mention what happens when you add multiple toddlers to the equation. Prayer gets simple and spartan real quick and I suggest that anybody who holds a strong opinion on “hand missal” usage to have to manage a small horde of children at the same time. But, that is *exactly* the beauty of the Vetus Ordo: I *can* participate in the Mass, even if I am completely overwhelmed by my children. Meanwhile in the Novus Ordo, families are often pressured into cry-rooms or even dropping their children off at a nursery so that they can “participate” by listening to some chap speak for 45 minutes.
Which is all to say, “participation” in the Vetus is actually based in reality: you have people of different ages, races, languages, moods, abilities, health, etc all experiencing the Mass simultaneously and not segregated, for we are united not in our intellectual ability to read or listen, but in Christ’s sacrifice upon the altar.
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I’ve never read of reading your Missal in advance and then after Mass. Today’s Monday so I guess I’ll pick up that practice! I like it! I’ll even pass it along to my parents who struggle to follow the Mass due to my siblings! Thanks for the ideas!
I know I’ll have to dodge tomatoes and rotten eggs for posting this, but I’m rather sad the Dialogue Mass hasn’t become more popular. In a nutshell, the faithful had the option to speak the responses with the servers. When our TLM was resuscitated with the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum, we did the Dialogue Mass, and I have only praise for the experience. It took two years (from 2007 to 2009) to get the TLM going, and for many who’d never been to a TLM the transition from the Novus Ordo was made smoother because the laity were involved at an activity level they were accustomed to.
Eventually, TLM “purists” came to dominate our congregation and the dialogue Mass disappeared. I just can’t see that we’re better off now.
Participation in the NO feels scripted.
Years ago I had an interest in the Eastern Liturgy. I remember reading Archbishop Raya( I think) years ago, who made the observation the observation that the whole Church building was considered part of the Liturgy. So that staring at the Icons, getting up and lighting a taper during the Liturgy would be considered active participation even though , in our western approach , it would be considered a distraction. I think this approach is not without merit.
“This is why the priest has to read them and why they are read at the altar even if they are sung by subdeacon and deacon or read in the vernacular.”
I believe this was expected before the 1960 Code of Rubrics, but not after. Most of the Celebrants whom I have served as an MC for a Missa Solemnis have been seated during the Epistle, although they are at the altar (if not reading from the missal) when the Deacon chants the Gospel.
Father, you say – ” The readings are also sacrifices being raised on high to the Father. The Word is being raised upward. This is why the priest has to read them and why they are read at the altar even if they are sung by subdeacon and deacon …”.
But the 1960 revised rubrics have “473. In sung Masses, all that the deacon, or subdeacon, or lector sing or read by virtue of their office is omitted by the celebrant.”
In my opinion, it’s really simpler than they are making it out to be.
“full, conscious and actual/active” participation
To receive Communion with full, conscious, and active participation means being fully attentive to the fact that you are receiving Jesus Christ fully, that you are (to the fullest of your awareness) in the state of grace, and you have a conscious desire to conform yourself to Christ Whom you are receiving.
Active participation during the consecration is to be attentive to the re-presentation of the sacrifice of calvary, and your active desire to join yourself to the sacrifice which Christ made and which Christ in the person of the priest makes present.
Full and active participation during the rest of mass implies full awareness of what that part of the mass is doing, and your entering into it with a spirit of willing acceptance and willing desire for it: e.g. to attend to the collect, or the readings, so as to impress them upon your mind and heart.
LESS full participation comes with either less than complete awareness or less than complete disposition to make yourself conformed to those parts of the mass. We all have distractions, but if they are not willing distractions, we can still be said to actively participate in the mass, if imperfectly. This is unavoidable when you are forced to attend to something else, (e.g. several kids): if you are attending in those moments to your duty in those moments with a spirit of willingness to attend rather to mass if and when you are free to do so, you are doing the Lord’s will and will not lose by it. Man proposes, but God disposes: you can desire to give perfect, full and active participation at mass, (and prepare for that by proper measures), but if God wills otherwise, you may have only imperfect participation at mass.
It is perhaps good, but less good, to pray the rosary during the preface, than to attend to the preface itself in its own proper details. If you don’t have a missal, and can’t follow the Latin, then reasonably you should pray in a way less specific to that particular part of the mass…which will be active participation but in a less perfect form.
As a former altar boy and lector, I can attest to the fact that it takes much more effort and dedication to give full, active, interior participation in the mass while fulfilling an outward role than it does while just being in the pews. From that perspective, the kind of “active participation” that is promoted by those who created the Novus Ordo and those who push its outward fringe of practice is DIRECTLY CONTRARY to the intent of Vatican II.
The 1960 changes were – frankly – wicked. They ought to be ignored.
“Every word and gesture of the sacred liturgy, especially Holy Mass, is CHRIST acting and speaking. ”
I recently discovered a book published by TAN Books entitled, “What the Mass Means: An Introduction to the Rites of the Latin Mass” by Fr. Victor Hintgen. It was originally published in 1936 and is very helpful in understanding every word and every gesture made in the TLM.
I see the Sarum Missals assume that at Mass the celebrant only reads the Epistle & Gospel when other ministers are not available. Various missals called Missale Romanum from before 1570 are unclear, they just give the blessing of the deacon without mentioning the celebrant doing the readings, or not.
I wonder can you, Father, point me to evidence of the practice before 1570, apart from that of the Roman Curia. The court officials had no cure of souls, and thus no need for Mass with a congregation which was their pastoral responsibility.
There is a 19th century book by Rev Thomas Edward Bridgett that discusses participation in the Mass. It can be found here:
https://archive.org/details/ritualofnewtesta00bridiala
He says the prayers of the faithful at Mass make up a common act even though they are not part of a common prayer. He has a beautiful discussion of this on pages 112-114, this passage is near the end of the discussion:
“It is the most marvellous union of liberty and law which this earth can show. The beggar with his beads, the child with her pictures, the gentleman with his Missal, the maiden meditating on each mystery of the Passion, or adoring her God in silent love too deep for words, and the grateful communicant, have but one intent, one meaning, and one heart, as they have one action, one object, before their mental vision. They bow themselves to the dust as sinners; they pray to be heard for Christ’s sake; they joyfully accept His words as the words of God ; they offer the bread and wine ; they unite themselves with the celebrant in the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, which he as their priest offers for them ; they communicate spiritually ; they give thanks for the ineffable gift which God has given them. Their words differ, their thoughts vary; but their hearts are united and their will is one.” (Page 114)
By the way, the problem with the dialog Mass is that it interferes with the private meditations of worshippers. If one wants to say all of the responses, you can do so silently!
When the kids were young, I used to read the readings with them on Saturday evening. Not exactly forthe reasons you’ve stated here but in hope that if they sounded familiar to their young ears they would be more engaged at mass and less likely to find distractions.