Expert: Fr. Timothy Johnson - 8/7/2009

Question
Dear Father Johnson,

Please excuse the length of my question, but I need a sanity check.

What, exactly, is being celebrated at Mass?

I am only in my forties, but believe is that Holy Mass is the sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, really and truly present on the altar, under the appearances of bread and wine, offered to God by the priest for the living and the dead.

I understand that Mass is also a celebration, in that proceeding from the bloodless Sacrifice is the Sacrament of Holy Communion, and that in the past, appreciation/celebration of this was perhaps not emphasised enough, our salvation being cause for great joy.

These days it seems the sacrament is being celebrated almost in lieu of the sacrifice, which is being relegated as some kind of ‘technical necessity’ and that the Mass is really a re-enactment of the Last Supper, and that the ‘unfortunate business of the Cross’ although necessary is not to be morbidly lingered-over.

I also wonder about the validity of crucifixes where Christ is not nailed to the cross although in the crucified position, or stands risen before it as Christ the King.

Is my belief wrong or too conservative or out-of-date? Is more balance required and if so, where?

Many thanks,

Dave.


Answer
Hi, Dave:
Thanks for the comments...
What you present seems quite accurate to me.  The only thing I would reflect on more would be the technical use of the term "celebration."  The Mass in all of its aspects is a liturgical celebration - i.e. sacred rites carried out in accord with the authority of the Church.  I would recommend that you read "Feast of Faith" by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.  In his opening pages of the book he uses a certain kind of "irony" (at least I took it as an intended ironic exposition) of these two variant views of how things are carried out in the Eucharist; and after listing numerous factors, he ends by saying that the only thing in common between the aproaches of rupture and continuity in the tradition of the Mass is "celebration."  He makes it clear that what he finds is lacking in the hermeneutic of "rupture" is the necessary and indispensible defined theology behind the ritual of the Mass that must be given a proper emphasis in its liturgical celebration.
The very elements of the Mass you point out above are all expounded in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Canon Law, the General Instruction, etc.  The problem (or perhaps challenge) is for most Catholics to REdiscover them, for they certainly have not changed in any essential way.  I have had people tell me in a backhandedly complimentary way that it seems as though I celebrate the old Latin Tridentine Mass, but just in English, when I offer Mass.  Well, perhaps I do: I simply follow the hermeneutic of continuity, within the prescribed and approved Order of Mass, whether in the Ordinary or the Extraordinary Form.

Fr. Timothy Johnson