We entered the church about fifteen minutes early, and the priest was greeting people before Mass. He asked our kids what what they "got for Christmas," did they like their toys, etc. Okay. We find a pew on the far side and Mass begins. "Whether you're an Eagles fan or a Dallas fan, local or traveling, divorced and remarried, you're welcome here." Okay. I was starting to get a little uncomfortable.
Pope Benedict noted that,“Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attraction fades quickly — it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation.”
At every opportunity, the priest would find a way to interject some joke or personal observation about this or that that was outside of the rubrics of the Mass. Even right before the consecration, he did his own impromptu monologue about the Last Supper. The altar as a stage, the priest as the center of attention. Soliciting jokes and clapping for this and that. The homily making no reference whatsoever to Christmas, or Christ as Savior. My heart was hurting. The army of Eucharistic Ministers took their stations, and we got out of line. As much as the priest was profaning the Mass with his antics, his hands were still consecrated. Our family filed in the opposite direction and across the back, and received on the tongue from the priest as we normally do.
Although Canon law states that there is nothing sinful about a communicant receiving the Eucharist from an EM, it is my personal practice to receive only from the priest or deacon. EMs are supposed to be extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, used only when absolutely necessary, yet they have become standard in most Catholic parishes as some kind of lay participatory activity. I'm not going off on a tirade, but only to say I think in most circumstances they are not necessary and that the priest should be the only one distributing Communion. This was just one of a number of things that I just took for granted during my early years as a Catholic but didn't realize how far it was from how the Mass should be celebrated, because, well, that's just the way it was in every parish I visited, this kind of spirit of the 70's thing.
When Mass was over, the older couple in front of us turned around and asked us how we "liked it." My wife groaned inside, because I wasn't like her and would tell them what I thought. "Father so and so, isn't he great? He packs his church to standing room only," the woman said. I nodded and smiled, stating that I didn't appreciate words and impromptu interjections during the Mass, that it took away the focus from Christ and did an injustice to the integrity of tradition. I said it matter of factly without making a scene, and only because they asked so directly. They were completely taken aback that someone would not love such a performance, and were a little flustered. We wished one another a Merry Christmas, smiling, and left.
I was far from a bastion of orthodoxy in college and in my twenties, but the priest making himself the center of attention and treating the altar as his performing stage always bothered me. A lot. After our beloved campus priest was transferred to another assignment, and we were assigned a replacement, this happened with regularity. The new priest was like a thespian and treated each Mass as a performance. I noticed it again with another priest when I attended Mass in Philly where I moved a few years later; though he was more orthodox, he still seemed to set himself up as the center of attention on stage, so much so that I wrote a letter to him saying as much. At the "Catholic" college I worked at in my thirties, the nuns changed the words during Mass to make it "gender-inclusive" and I couldn't stand it. The words are not ours to change.
The parish we attend now seems to have a more concerted view of liturgical integrity. There are patins at Communion, an organ, and the architecture of the 200+ year old church supports a more reverent demeanor. There are still EMs, but we always sit where we can receive from the priest. Some of the altar servers are girls, which bothers me, but I guess you have to choose your battles. It seems, in my mind, an easy enough solution--there is an established altar rail. Even if it took 15 minutes longer, everyone could kneel on it and the priest could distribute Communion they way they do at the Latin Mass, with no need for EMs.
I brought it up to the director of Liturgy at the parish we attend and he said they need to take baby steps and something like that would be considered too radical. I'm not on the parish council or too involved with the politics of parish life, but am sympathetic to what he most likely has to deal with. As much as a handful of people are impassioned about a more traditional liturgy, there are just as many who are wedded to the spirit of the seventies and are pushing for greeters and guitars, and they make their voice and power known. It is a balance, I suppose, and it is bearable for us at our current parish. There are strings of orthodoxy sewn throughout the blanket, strings which are just holding us there, though I don't know for how long.
I don't quite understand where I am at, where I fall, liturgically. On the one hand, such liturgical abuse as described above during Christmas Mass feels like arrows in my heart, painful and embarrassing. And yet I'm not as far to the other extreme as someone moved to tears or having their breath taken away by the reverence of a traditional Mass. I can appreciate it and prefer it, and I think the disposition we have at Mass is in fact supported by the art, architecture, posture, and liturgy, but I don't have strong feelings about it as the be all end all.
I'm caught in the middle, it feels--our current parish is not as blatantly profane in their liturgical expression as some parishes, and so are impetus for ferrying to a more traditional parish is not as urgent as it may be for some. And yet, it is still built on what some might consider the faulty foundation of modernism, the Novus Ordo. In short, we are going to ride out the year and then pray about whether we are being called to a TLM parish or to stay and try to "bloom where we are planted." It feels like an extreme step, putting us in a seemingly "extreme" camp to which I'm not sure we would fit as a family, but I think we need to consider it is in prayer as what might prove to be a necessary option.
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