Merton refers to the “relevance paradox”, whereby decision makers think they know their areas of ignorance regarding an issue, obtain the necessary information to fill that ignorance void but intentionally neglect other areas as its relevance is not obvious to them.
I have no experience in economics, politics, or sociology, but in the past few years I have been paying attention to the issues surrounding liturgical reform. Why? As an American I am indirectly affected by economics, politics, and sociology. As a Catholic who has made faith the cornerstone of my life, however, I am directly affected by both my interior prayer and external worship.
For much of the past twenty years since I became a Catholic, I have been looking from the inside-out. My personal conversion of heart in the wilderness of upstate Pennsylvania at the age of seventeen constituted an inner metanoia or "born-again" experience which demanded a vessel to house it. That vessel of deposit was the Catholic Church, into which I was grafted when I made my first Confession, Communion, and Confirmation a year and a half later. Although Byzantine by rite, for twenty years I was more or less fed by the standard-fare of the Novus Ordo, as it was the only thing on the menu in college and beyond. I attended daily Mass often, and always on Sundays. I never gave much thought to how I was being formed from the outside-in: that is, how the liturgical expression of the Mass that I attended affected my inner spiritual disposition.
A.J. Jacob, the secular agnostic journalist who wrote an account of his guinea-pig attempt to live the Judaic biblical mandates to a 'T' in his book The Year of Living Biblically, noted that "Judaism has a slogan: deed over creed.' There's an emphasis on behavior; follow the rules of the Torah, and you'll eventually come to believe." Perhaps it was because I had such a strong interior conversion--recognizing my sinful nature and need for a Savior--that such a focus on the external locus (ie, "deed over creed") seemed foreign and Pharisaical. Religion was, and should be, a matter of the interior, the heart.
When I got married and my wife and I began having children, we continued to attend the local suburban parish as a matter of convenience. Built in a circular configuration in the 1990's, we were accustomed to the more or less anthropocentric experience of being "gathered around the table of the Lord" without giving much thought to it. We exchanged the Sign of Peace, took Communion in the hand from Eucharistic Ministers, and dressed more or less casually.
Little things were beginning to chafe over time, however. The applause by the congregation, the prominence of the music ministry, the creative license of the words of consecration by the priest. I was bothered, but couldn't put my finger on what it was that was bothering me.
We eventually switched parishes in large part because I was trying to get a street evangelization team off the ground and the parish we were attending was not interested in supporting one. The parish we ended up at had a pastor who was excited about claiming this endeavor and adding it to the roll of activities that marked a "vibrant parish." The church building itself was over one hundred years old, and maintained the architechural integrity of that era. There was an altar rail, though it was not utilized. The altar servers used a paten at Communion, but were still composed of boy and girl servers. The music was more traditional, though using the same hymnbook as our old parish. Again, these things began to chaff after a while, though they were in a parish more or less devoid of blatant liturgical abuses.
By happenstance, a local friend extended an invitation to attend a Latin Mass in the city. I decided to scout it out alone and report back to my family. I do not remember being overwhelmed by its beauty or reverence, but I do remember feeling a little disoriented and lost. But a seed was planted, and when we discovered a Latin Mass closer to our home we began to attend once a month, while attending the Novus Ordo the remaining Sundays. When it became too schizophrenic, we eventually made the jump to attending the TLM full time, and registered at the parish.
We were worried about our children's behavior initially, since they could be rowdy. But surprisingly, the more we attended, the quieter and better behaved they became. We began to realize we were somewhat under dressed, and I began to wear a tie and blazer like the other men and my wife, a dress. Ironically, the first Mass I attended as a Catholic in the university auditorium I dressed up for (because I thought that's what you do for church), but felt out of place among the shorts, tank tops, and flip flops of the other students. We found the Latin Mass itself to be more physically demanding with all the kneeling, but found eventually that it to be fitting for worship. Mass ad orientum reminded us why we were there--to offer worship, not primarily for fellowship. Eventually, the little pieces started to fall into place.
What does all this have to do with the law of unintended consequences? As someone who feels led to evangelize, and was attracted to the idea of a "New Evangelization" in order to share what I have received "like a beggar showing other beggars where the bread is," I found that our Latin Mass community was growing bigger each week with more and more families, despite the lack of programs, school, or formal efforts geared towards evangelizing. It was as if the Mass of Ages itself was drawing people in with no real advertising and no established program to do so. There was no welcoming committee, no greeters, no established outreach--and yet, people heard and came.
When I learn about the history of the liturgical reforms, it seems as if the efforts of drawing in people by making things less demanding, less mysterious, more accessible, and more anthropocentric has had the opposite effect. In relegating traditional communities in many dioceses to the "bad parts of town" and having them few and far between to seemingly discourage traditional worship as non-normative, another unintended consequence takes place--people drive far distances, sometimes upwards of an hour or more, to attend, even when they have a church 10 minutes from their house in a safe neighborhood.
This all presupposes that there was no nefarious intent in the reforms of the 1960's and that the attempts to "open the windows to the world," in the words of Pope John XXIII were indeed intended to evangelize the world. The argument could also be made that "correlation is not causation" and that the turbulent times of the sixties and seventies had as much to do with the plummeting attendance at Sunday Mass and the loss of belief in the Real Presence rather than the result of the liturgical reforms themselves. This is a topic which I am not prepared to tackle here.
Suffice it to say, however, when viewed through the lens of "unintended consequences," there seem to be many that have resulted from both the reforms themselves (decline), and the marginalizing of traditional worship (increases in attendance and devotion, as well as vocations). Could this be a so-called "paradox of relevance," whereby decision makers think they know their areas of ignorance regarding an issue, obtain the necessary information to fill that ignorance void but intentionally neglect other areas as its relevance is not obvious to them? It may be worth considering, and may even prove the old adage I still remember from my college retreat days: "Want to make God laugh? Tell Him your future plans."
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