The Means and Ends of the Mass

Note: I have submitted this piece to various publications, some of which I'm still waiting to hear back from. In the event it is published, I will remove this post and direct you to the link.

One would think attending Mass every Sunday has the potential to make one holy, but we know there are plenty of people who attend Mass weekly who would not fit such a description. On the flipside, were someone not to attend Mass at least weekly, assuming they are able to, we would not typically think of such people as especially pious or holy. That does not mean they can’t be “good” people, but to willfully neglect the 3rd Commandment is a grave matter and objectively contrary to the worship of God by faith, hope, and charity demanded in justice and at odds with the virtue of religion. I don’t think it is unreasonable to deduce that one cannot become holy as a Catholic outside of assisting at Mass, provided there are no impediments from one attending. Mass, then, is one of the means by which we attain the end of knowing, loving, and serving God.

Weekly Mass attendance (for the 17% of Catholics in the U.S. who do so) is one matter at hand being discussed here. Some may see Mass attendance as the end (fulfilling one’s obligation, receiving Eucharist, seeing one’s friends, etc), rather than a means of holiness. But there is another matter; for if holiness (and not simply Mass attendance) is both our means and our end in this life, what bearing does the form of Mass one attends have on the attainment of holiness?

This question has been kicking at the backdoor of my mind since we have been exclusively assisting at the Traditional Latin Mass as a family for the past five years. At times I have had to ask myself why we made the switch over: is it because we feel more at home among those who attend the TLM, with people of like mind? Is it because we know what to expect and can set our watch by the rubrics? Is it because it fosters an atmosphere of devotion (it does) and rightful orientation (ditto)? Is it because it gives us some kind of bragging rights, since the Traditional Latin Mass is defacto and objectively a “better” Mass that reflects its true sacrificial nature? Has the Mass, in this way, become a kind of “end?”

And do the degree that we are talking about the means: has the Traditional Latin Mass made me holier?

This is an unnerving question to ask oneself. On the one hand, God often shields our eyes from our spiritual progress for our own benefit. Were we to see the degree to which we have progressed in the spiritual life, we may get puffed up with pride or believe we ourselves are the reasons for our advancement. 

But on the other hand, what if the form of Mass that we attend truly has no bearing on the ultimate means and ends of personal holiness? What if we are simply “trading” sins and imperfections in transferring our record from one Mass to another, like playing Spiritual Whac-a-Mole?—we were once lax and presumptive, but now we are haughty and judgmental, for example. What if the Mass is akin to a Sacrament which always give grace, but only if we receive it with the right disposition? In other words, just because we have the form down, doesn’t mean our dispositions are worthy. And at the end of the day, isn’t holiness for God’s sake the end we should be seeking, by whatever means we are afforded?

The first lesson in the Baltimore Catechism concerns itself with the End of Man--the purpose for which he was created: namely, to know, love, and serve God. Children recount this from their St. Joseph’s catechism: “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.” This is in accordance with the greatest and first Commandment given to us by our Lord himself in Mt 22:37: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.” 

In the 19th chapter of Matthew’s gospel preceding this proscription, a man approaches Jesus seeking the end of attaining everlasting life (Mt 19:16), to which Jesus gives him the means: to keep the Commandments (v 17). The man replies that he has kept all these, to which Jesus replies, “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow me” (Mt 19:21).

St. Peter exhorts in his first epistle, “According to him that hath called you, who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy. Because it is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15-16). Of course he is simply reiterating what Yahweh communicates to His people in the Torah, “Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev 19:2).

An end of something is the goal, the destination, what one seeks. The means, in contrast, are what one uses to achieve the end. According to Paul Tatter, “Ends are about the present, not about the future.  A present end may not survive into the future, but it might be helpful now.  Ends help us to decide what to do in the present; they are useful guides in our activity.”[1]

So, what then, is our end as Christians? To secure eternal life for ourselves? Or to be holy? Are they one and the same? And in what does holiness consist? In faith? In works? In perfection (detachment)? 

Even then, we must ask, “is holiness itself a means or an end?” If we fulfill the Greatest Commandment to “know, love, and serve” God with our “whole heart, soul, and mind,” we have achieved the end, the purpose for which we were created according to the Catechism. But to pursue holiness for its own sake as an end is gravely misleading; for as Scripture also attests, “no one is righteous, no not one” (Rom 3:10). To the degree that we attain holiness in this life as a means, however, this gets us closer to the state of union with God, which should be our ultimate end both in this life and the afterlife. What must we do to save our souls? To save our souls, we must worship God by faith, hope, and charity; that is, we must believe in Him, hope in Him, and love Him with all our heart.  

What, then, is the purpose of the Mass? When we ask ourselves if holiness is a means or an end in order to determine that “useful guide in our activity” in this life, and if we must worship God by faith, hope, and charity in order to save our souls, we should remember that the means instituted by our Lord to enable men at all times to share in the fruits of His Redemption are the Church and the Sacraments (BC, Q114). 

The ends for which the sacrifice of the Cross was offered were:  1. To honor and glorify God;  2. To thank Him for all the graces bestowed on the whole world;  3. To satisfy God's justice for the sins of men;  4. To obtain all graces and blessings  (Q267). Likewise, the four ends of the Mass (the memorial of the sacrifice of the Cross) are: Adoration, Thanksgiving, Atonement and Petition. 

Ask any ordinary Catholic on the street why they attend Mass on Sundays and you might get any of the following responses:

“The Church says I have to.”

“I enjoy seeing and interacting with the people in my faith community.”

“I desire to receive Jesus in the Eucharist.”

“I recognize that God’s justice demands due worship.”

“It keeps me in line and makes me a better person.”

If one googles “What is the purpose of going to Mass?” you get back a varied number of responses ranging from “The Mass is an opportunity for us to join together as a community of believers and pray and celebrate together” to “its purpose is to send forth the faithful to bring forth the Good News of Jesus, and to be His presence in the world.” Some responses focus more on why one should go to Mass, or spits out bullet-point “Five Good Reasons to go to Mass” type articles.

Simple observation would preclude me from being able to deduce that the Latin Mass has made me a holier person by itself. Does it have the potential to do so like a sacramental that excites in us pious dispositions, by means of which we may obtain grace (in contrast to a Sacrament which gives the grace itself)? Yes it does, of course. But so does the Novus Ordo Missae, as countless canonized saints from the twentieth century who never attended the Latin Mass but only the N.O. attest to. They have run the race and attained the end of holiness, men and women and children who lived in the friendship of God in this life and are now eternally with him in the next.

What I am realizing—whether it was five years ago at my standard-fare suburban parish or now as a devoted TLM adherent—is that at the end of the day after Mass has ended, it is me that is kneeling in the pew. 

Still me. Same me. 

Now, can I say that if we would have remained in the New Mass I would have had to contend with barriers to attaining holiness, or perhaps we would have “bloomed where we were planted” as a family?; On the flipside, can I really affirm that the Latin Mass has defacto made me a better, more sanctified Catholic—or simply one with an liturgically ideological prerogative? It’s hard to say outside the mind of God.

To the degree that I am abandoning myself more and more to the mercy of God and becoming imperceptibly holier day by day in the process is the degree to which the means I am employing attain the ends which I am seeking; ie, a “means to an end.” But when I ascribe the form of the Mass—or even just attending Mass by itself in whatever form—as an end in and of itself, I can be assured that it will not “make” me holier of its own accord. At the end of the day, I remain. The same me, failing to be reborn and attain my end and pointing to this or that as the reason why; the same me in need of regular confession, mercy, and grace. A beggar takes grace like bread--wherever he can get it. And we are all no better than hungry beggars before the majesty of God.