A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Choir (Not a Band!)

A friend recently posed a question on Facebook that stayed my scrolling fingers and made me ponder. He asked, “What is worship?” Intuitively, I thought this would be an easy task, so I started typing a comment, only to be stopped in my tracks. I discovered that I had no satisfying answer. Unsettled a bit by my inability, I decided to find a suitable answer to the question at hand, as this subject is dear to my heart.

What is worship? The always reliable Father John Hardon provides an excellent technical definition:

“Worship is acknowledgment of another’s worth, dignity, or superior position. In religion, worship is given either to God, and then it is adoration, or to the angels and saints, and it is called veneration. Divine worship actually includes three principal acts, namely adoration (or the recognition of God’s infinite perfection), prayer or the asking for divine help, and sacrifice or the offering of something precious to God. Worship as veneration also has three principal forms, whereby the angels and saints are honored for their sanctity, asked to intercede before the divine Majesty, and imitated in their love and service of God.” –Modern Catholic Dictionary, John A. Hardon, S.J.

But this definition takes us only so far. In the Catholic Church, we distinguish between two principal manifestations of worship: Para-liturgical and Liturgical.

Para-liturgical worship varies according to individual personality. For example, many Catholic teens and young adults attend FOPs (Festivals of Praise) at places like Franciscan University and use keyboards, drums, and guitars to worship the King. Others prefer a quiet chapel with Gregorian chant, others pray the rosary in the privacy of their bedroom, and still others choose to worship with the Universal Church in personal observation of the Liturgy of the Hours. There are no rules or rubrics that mandate how to worship the Lord!

On the other hand, when we turn to the physical manifestations of Liturgical worship, the Church gives us rubrics to follow, and much of the individuality of para-liturgical worship is homogenized into a truly universal, Catholic model. Monsignor Peter Elliott, a beacon of light amidst the fog of liberal liturgical theology, outlines five principles of Liturgical worship:

1. God-centered Reverence: “[we]…Express devotion, the heart set on God, the undivided heart…In celebration of the Holy Mysteries, we should fear neither an appropriate “otherworldliness” nor the incarnational use of signs, movement, color sound the bodily senses. Supernatural and natural, the spirit and matter, are integrated through the Incarnation. Therefore, good Christian worship and prayer is faithful to this unity of the invisible and the visible. ‘…and the Word was made flesh.’” (Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite, Msgr. Peter J. Eliott, Introduction, various selections from par. 5-38)

My parents brought me to my first Christmas Midnight Mass when I was merely two days old. They proceeded to take me to Mass at every opportunity to teach me the meaning of the Real Presence. I remember hearing my dad whisper “Look, that’s Jesus” at the elevations, and my mom encouraging me to pay attention to the Scriptures and the homily even though I had difficulty understanding. The result of these little lessons was that I learned two things: Mass is a place where we go to behold and glorify God, and we must be reverent at all times in God’s house. This principle really is that simple! God is the purpose of liturgical worship, and He merits our unmitigated veneration.

2. Noble Simplicity: “…the words ‘noble’ and ‘simple’ are meant to be kept together so that they propose one ideal. That ceremonial should be ‘noble’ excludes both a casual and careless style and a pretentious and self-conscious ritualism. Nobility speaks to us of a sense of graciousness and splendor, which may be equally evident at a solemn Mass or at the simplest celebration. Nobility means offering the best for God: noble actions, gestures, and also noble altars, vessels, vestments, etc. In this nobility we recognize that God is beautiful, that He should be adored with beauty and that our redeemed nature and our destiny are beatific…’Noble simplicity’ is unfortunately often reduced to ‘simplicity’. In practice this means carrying out rites in the easiest way possible, or using cheap objects for furniture, vessels and vestments…A casual regard for detail produces Liturgy that is uncertain and clumsy, hence neither noble nor simple.” (Ibid)

I once served as Master of Ceremonies for a Holy Thursday Mass at my parish, where the choir director, my pastor, ten altar boys, and the crew of sacristans and ushers poured their hearts and souls into preparing and carrying out a splendid liturgy. We made a glorious noise for the Lord that night, and our prayers rose on billowing clouds of incense before the Heavenly Throne. After the rite culminated with the Eucharistic procession, a member of the community (as I found out later) accused the altar servers of “showboating”. This person preferred a liturgy devoid of musical richness, the minimum number of altar servers, and an absence of incense. In other words, a simplistic liturgy lacking the beauty of nobility. Yet our parish family was fed spiritually that Maundy Thursday because they received the noble simplicity of the Mass of the Catholic Church.

3. Continuity of Tradition: “We should respect gracious customs and traditions. But maintaining the continuity of our tradition goes beyond a restoration of the past. Within continuity there is always development, which is as subtle a process in the liturgy of the Church as it is in the deeper understanding of Her doctrinal truths.” (Ibid) One way that we restore and continue the tradition of the past is by deepening and promoting the richness of Liturgical music: “The close relationship between music and ceremonial is part of the continuity of our tradition. Ceremonial is inseparable from music because the faithful participate through watching and hearing at the same time. Processions are lifeless without appropriate music. Singing at a liturgy bereft of ceremonial reduces liturgical music to a series of ‘items’, which may bear little or no relationship to the content or the moments of the rite.” (Ibid)

There is a good chance that you either love the Traditional Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form) or you know someone who does. I also appreciate and treasure this form of the Latin Rite. As stated above, we inherited mighty forces of tradition from the Extraordinary Form that include Gregorian chant and polyphonic Mass settings. Nevertheless, to deny either the natural or supernatural beauty and power of the Ordinary Form is contrary to authentic liturgical continuity. We must maintain the recognizable continuity between pre- and post-Second Vatican Council liturgy, without only attempting to “bring back tradition”. After all, even the most venerable traditions were once novel.

4. Fidelity to the Church: “The gospel of the Incarnate Word is the basic cause of the human forms of Christian Worship, and in liturgy we find the supreme point where the Incarnation transforms culture. Thus, as servants of the Church, each of us should regard the sacred liturgy as greater than ourselves. It may be a human work, the result of centuries of human invention and labor, but that work has been inspired by the Holy Spirit. It may be the fruit of many cultures, and it is certainly a major way in which they have been transmitted, but those cultures were transformed into the rich tapestry of christian civilization by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the gospel of the Incarnate Word is the basic “cause “ of the human forms of Christian worship. In liturgy, we find the supreme point where the Incarnation transforms culture.” (Ibid)

I’m sure you have heard the term “baptize the culture” recently. The phrase has become commonplace in American Catholic parlance. At its core the idea finds substance in tradition and Church teaching; after all, we are called to be salt and light and go through all the world preaching the Gospel. Unfortunately, I think that we sometimes commit blunders in cultural engagement. It may be fashionable to say that Taylor Swift is communicating purity and love in her songs, or that Harry Potter leads our youth into developing solid Christian Virtues. But when was the last time we showed Christ to the world instead of trying to prove that the world shows Christ to us? Pope Francis once admonished us to go out into the streets and cause a disturbance, to make a noise and rupture the status quo. The Church gave us the most outstanding tool for the job: the Mysteries of the Sacred Liturgy!

5. Pastoral Liturgy: “This ‘pastoral’ sense can only be achieved by adherence to the previous four principles: seeing liturgy as God-Centered, seeking noble simplicity, maintaining the continuity of our tradition, and being faithful to the liturgies of the Church. Pastoral liturgy is not “creativity” or “novelty”, but is derived from the relationship between the triune God and creation. Therefore, liturgical creativity should be based on the needs of the faithful. It is formed by listening to the “sense of faith” of the people, who readily welcome beautiful ceremonies, carried out reverently and competently. Liturgical creativity includes respect for the human goodness and value of popular devotions, which the Council encouraged…But this pastoral creativity is not based only on concern for the needs of the people…Our Liturgical creativity helps us to look at creation as God beholds it, a universe which is ordered, good and beautiful in itself, hence meant to be offered to the Creator through the actions of the body, the sound of the voice, the harmony of all the senses. Such true creativity affirms the dignity of our nature, the essential optimism of Catholicism, grounded in the virtues of faith, hope and love). In the reverent, devout and stately celebration of the ceremonies of the Church, we are called to and prepared for a higher form of worship.” (Ibid)

Imagine two parishes. The first parish has a fairly large liturgical choir composed of men and women, a dynamic body of altar boys, an altar society for young girls and their mothers, and a Knights of Columbus chapter. In the second parish, the choir is really a band, and they play in the sanctuary rather than in the choir loft; there are only young girls serving at the altar because the boys do not want to participate in a “girly” activity; it is everyone’s ‘right’ to distribute Communion and be a “Eucharistic minister”; and continuity with tradition has been abandoned in favor of adding personal touches to the liturgy. Liturgy at the first parish is reverent, simple yet noble, contiguous with tradition, and faithful to the Church’s teaching and direction. At the second parish, liturgy is simply ordered towards the desires, ideas, and idiosyncrasies of the congregation and the pastor. The first is authentically creative and pastoral; the second seeks to entertain and refrain from offending.

So…what is worship?

God made us to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this life and in the next. We can know God, love Him, and serve Him to the fullest through active participation in the Sacred Mystery of the Mass, the greatest form of worship we possess. Therefore, worship is what we do to fulfill the purpose of our creation! I believe that it behooves us to love, cherish, and understand the worship of our Church and to say with the Psalmist “I will praise thee, O Lord my God: with my whole heart, and I will glorify thy name for ever: For thy mercy is great towards me: and thou hast delivered my soul out of the lower hell.” (Psalm 86:12-13, Douay-Rheims)

A final excerpt from Msgr. Elliott:

“Now is the time to develop the splendor and glory contained in the living traditions of Catholic worship. Now is the time to bring forth treasures old and new. This need not be a contrived or tiring effort. The high ideals inherent in working to achieve beautiful and prayerful worship are easily attainable. Wherever we are called to offer worship, the Spirit Himself comes to aid us in our weakness.”

Praised be Jesus Christ…now and forever!