Picking up on Brother Joe SJ's asking for end to improvising commentary by priest celebrant at holy mass . . .

Much obliged to him, started a welcome train of thought for this pew-sitter . . .

Question too often is, what works for some worshipers, not for others. Not to mention what involves unwelcome adaptations, even leading to sacrilegious behavior or more often to mockery of the sacred.

Joe made mention of his novitiate days, when the happy few of them gathered around the altar table in a sort of sacred intimacy. More power to them of course. Many the good thing that stems from such unity of purpose.

Puts me in mind of my novitiate days, Milford O., in early 50’s, when one of us, having sat after communion to relieve an ache or pain, was called in by the rector, a WW2 chaplaincy veteran, and chewed out for his irreverence.

No gathering around (in a half-circle) the altar table if only because there was no such thing. Nor happy few, instead the 50-new-ones-a-year on their knees for 15 minutes after mass in the domestic chapel across the haul from the big dining hall.

So it went in those days long long ago. Foreign country really. Can hardly criticize Joe or any of his contemporaries for not doing or even recognizing such behavior or practice. Nor can this survivor deny his recalling it with respect and offering it by way of commentary on Joe’s coverage.

That said, there’s a problem here. It’s making the mass a vehicle aimed at comforting worshipers. God knows it does that. But via what ritual and ignoring what about its history and its endorsement by the church Jesus made — as God the Son become man, suffering for love of His Father to free God’s creatures from sin with the absolutely necessary help of the Holy Spirit?

That said, some more offered by Brother Joe,

He gives samples:

My novice master often opened Mass with a short disquisition about the saint of the day. He was a good storyteller. I learned about saints I knew nothing about. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

If he had folded it into the homily, it would have been too long. The beginning of Mass was the right place.

Makes sense.

(The formula [aka ritual, apparently] even invites this moment of improvisation, noting that the priest “may very briefly introduce the faithful to the Mass of the day” after the sign of the cross and the greeting and before the penitential act.)

Indeed, we weekday mass-goers almost always hear that, or in my case try to make it out, hearing not what it used to be. But the effort by the priest varies considerably, both as to announce the day’s message and to say it so all can understand him.

I love Joe’s branding the good, the bad, and awful. Pew-sitters have a right to do that. And ideally he talks up a good thing, which does not turn out that way — which is why he wrote the piece, of course!

Novice masters, he continues,

who are educating young Jesuits into a life in the church are completely allowed to deliver an opening disquisition on a saint. It’s O.K. Our small group always gathered around the altar during the consecration. It was nice; it fit the circumstances.

Ah yes, by the way, I was reminded of an experience I had some years back by meeting the pastor, a young man, of the parish in the very parish at whose church we and dozens if not hundreds of others gathered in a requiem mass, not for parish members but for the entire church building being shut down for lack of pew-sitters!

This man, for many years pastor of another parish noted in an after-mass gathering in the very building after the mass that he and I had had a private mass on a weekday many years back when I was the only mass-goer to show up for mass, as usual in an altar-boy changing room-turned-chapel for week-day mass.

I’d walked the half mile down Washington Boulevard, middle of the street, traffic nil in the wake of a tremendous snow storm.

He was about to give up when no one had shown up for 15 minutes — I was late - and we had a one-on-one mass after which I never felt the same about him. It was a mass to remember, for me and him too, he said the other day.

Joe gave instances when an experience like that can happen:

If, for instance, during the opening moments of a funeral for a high school sophomore you only “say the words”—if you don’t make some acknowledgment to the student’s family and friends of the tragedy in front of you—then there is fair evidence that you are some kind of monster..

I recently attended a funeral mass for a grade and high school classmate in the 40’s that was another mass to remember, in addition that of a friend of a relatively few years in our parish of this day.

The priest needn’t do much, Joe says.

Free yourselves, o priests, from thinking you have to re-create what does not need re-creating.

But . . .

. . . even then, even then! For most of the Mass, just saying the words, letting the spirit ride through the text can be enough. Let people grieve through the contours of the liturgy.

To be sure!

In any case,

. . . a congregation can tell the difference between reverence and rigidity. They know if you are celebrating Mass with healthy piety or if you are worshipping a fierce Roman god called “Rubric.”

Yuck to that!

He defines a rubric as “the methods of the Mass, the guidebook.”

And likens it to a “pagan worship . . . sometimes, literally, being rigid; focusing more on the proper and mechanical raising of the hands than on what the raising of the hands are doing.”

Yuck.

“Rigidity is tension,” he says. “If you [the priest] are tense, we in the congregation will become tense. Mass will suddenly become all about you.”

Oh boy.

“We will take into ourselves the stress in your body. It will flow out into the sanctuary.”

Look out!

“And if you breathe, O priest, we will breathe. Your peace will become our peace.”

We can only hope so.

And you needn’t improvise.

Even at a children’s Mass you can “just say the words.” Yes, a regular Sunday children’s Mass, the very temple of improvised prayers and gestures! Even here you can follow the text and the text alone and get away with it! You won’t come off as distant and unfeeling.

He’s seen it done.

I recently watched a priest celebrate such a liturgy. He didn’t give opening remarks that showed how young at heart he was; that demonstrated he can speak to the children’s level. He reserved his personalism for the homily. For the prayers of the Mass, he just did the words.

Routine, structure, the same thing that is always said. This is what children want. And they were with him. The kids were engaged the whole way. You could tell. Children feel safe with structure. They like knowing what is coming next. Most of us do.

Count me in.

Structure does not shackle anyone, it frees them. In fact, freedom cannot even exist where there are there no boundaries. Free yourselves, o priests, from thinking you have to re-create what does not need re-creating. Let the words do the work. Let the liturgy do the work. Trust your mere presence to do the work. You are enough.

Yes. And fitting end to satisfying statement.