Selfies at Calvary: The New Golden Calf . . . is Us

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We associate dance recitals with performers who are wrapped up with doing well on stage.  Applause, awards being handed out, and photos during or at the end of the performance are routine.

But would you applaud, hand out awards, or take photos at a funeral or memorial?  How about at the Last Supper or on Calvary?

If you could be there right now, would you applaud Christ’s words at the Last Supper, or how well He cleaned His disciples’ feet?  Would you want to hand out medals to the disciples for their loyalty, or ask all present to pose for the greatest photo ever taken?   And would you applaud at Calvary in praise of Christ’s ultimate Redemptive Sacrifice?  Would you want to pose for a selfie with Christ crucified as your backdrop?

Now that I have shocked you enough, I challenge you to tell me that many Masses are not becoming more like a dance recital than a funeral or a memorial, much less the transcendent events at The Last Supper and Calvary.  This is, after all, what the Mass truly is.

Our Divine Purpose and Destiny:  Focus on God

We are meant to be perfect reflections of God’s love and partakers in the divine nature.  We know this because Genesis 1:26, 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, Matthew 5:48, and 2 Peter 1:3-4, all tell us so.

This belief that God has given us the tools we need to reach our divine destiny is called Theosis. But this eternal potential must be actualized by purging ourselves of ourselves.  We must  immerse ourselves in God and serving others for God.

In other words, the only way that we can fulfill our divine purpose and destiny is by focusing on God, the Will of God, and serving others for God.  It is, and always should be, about God. Whenever God is not the focus, we become the focus.  And you can ask Adam and Eve how well that works!

The Popes on Applause During Mass

As then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in The Spirit of the Liturgy (pgs. 22-23), the Liturgy is the very core of our faith.  We must guard against any self-seeking worship which becomes a feast that the community gives itself, a festival of self-affirmation.  According to Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, worship must always be about going up to God rather than drawing God down to our preferred attention and thereby placing ourselves above God.

Pope Benedict XVI also said in the Spirit of the Liturgy:

“Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of the liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment . Such attraction fades quickly – it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation.”

Pope St. Pius X also powerfully noted that “it is not fitting that the servant should be applauded in his Master’s house.”

The Mass as Calvary Actualized

As Catholics, we are supposed to believe that the Holy Mass is Calvary actualized.  At Mass we are present at the Paschal Mystery, at this Eternal Event of redemption and union with God.  Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi literally means how we worship reflects what we believe, which in turn reflects how we will live.  I suggest that the reverse is true as well.  How we live will reflect what we believe which, in turn, will be reflected in how we worship.  Simply put, our worship, beliefs, and way of life are all one, impacting and reflecting one another.

If we believe, as we should, that being at Mass is literally being present at The Last Supper and at Calvary, then we should act as we would at those two transcendent events in time. That being, said, let me get to the central point of this piece.

The Golden Calf Narrative

I do not know about you, but I always thought that the passage about the Israelites creating a golden calf while Moses was receiving The Ten Commandments from God was all about an explicit act of idolatry.  I thought the Israelites were creating and worshiping a new god. Apparently I was wrong.

According to Cardinal Ratzinger (as cited previously), the incident was more about the Israelites wanting to represent their God with the calf. They were not creating and worshiping a new god but simply trying to fashion God to their liking.  They wanted God on their terms, beholden to their concerns, preferences, and agenda.

But whenever we twist God into our agenda, we are disrespecting God.  Whether we admit it or not, we are placing our agenda above God.  This is obviously very wrong and misguided.

Is that not what we do when we celebrate human achievement with applause and photos during Mass?  Are we not putting our Rosary Society, Boy Scouts, lectors, cantors, choirs, music ministers, and even priests on display during what should be the worship of God?

Versus Populum Has Become a Theme

Most of us have heard the debate regarding which direction the priest faces during the Liturgy. The more traditional stance, used in Latin Masses, is Ad orientem – the priest facing the altar along with the people. The newer stance, used in masses today, is Versus populum – the priest facing the people.

Many priests I know have told me that any attempts to defend Versus populum fade in comparison to the net effect of focusing the Liturgy more on the priest and the people than on God.  Edward James Slattery, Bishop Emeritus of Tulsa, has argued that Versus populum turns the Liturgy into a conversation about God rather than the worship of God. Additionally, it places too much focus on the celebrant by placing him on a liturgical stage.

We used to all face God.  He alone should be the focus on our attention during the Liturgy. Today, we seem to face each other in one way or another, physically or figuratively.  We seem to put our backs to God as we wrap ourselves up in ourselves.

Today we even have applause and photos during Mass.  But this is just a symptom of a much larger problem.  We are converting our worship of God and the essence of our Faith into just another opportunity to worship ourselves and our achievements.  Yet we are supposed to be immersed in worshiping our Creator. That we are teaching our children that this is acceptable is far worse than our own error in doing it ourselves.

The World May Be a Stage, But the Liturgy Should Not Be

We are aware of Shakespeare’s famous line about the world being a stage which, as the father of two self-professed Broadway Fanatics, I can understand. However, the Liturgy should be a place where we put away our egos and immerse ourselves in the worship of our wonderful God.

It is my contention that we are pushing God out of the Mass just as this society has been pushing Christ out of Christmas.   We do this  by having the priest facing the people, and by placing the choir in the front of the congregation rather than in the choir loft behind the congregation.  And we do this by generally turning the liturgy and the practice of our faith into yet another chance to display ourselves, our talents and achievements,

Pope Francis has reminded us that

“Once we lose the sense of worship, we lose our direction in the Christian life, which is a journey towards the Lord, not towards ourselves.”

The Crucifix and The Blessed Sacrament should be the symbols of our Liturgy.  Instead we have put up a mirror in which we can admire ourselves, content that we are doing so in God’s house.

Keep Applause, Photos, and Performances for Dance Recitals

Two excellent pieces here at Catholic Stand by CS writer Gene Van Son pointed out how injecting a secular focus on the Liturgy takes away from the reverence and true purpose of the Mass.

The first piece notes that turning the Mass into a social gathering and getting too caught up with the “celebration” tightrope has only served to sacrifice the solemnity of what is really going on in the Liturgy.  The second, very recent piece powerfully points out that most praise and worship music is not suitable for Mass.  It goes on to remind us that the focus of the Mass should always be on God, The Word of God, and the wonderful Miracle that is occurring at the altar.

Applause and photo-ops during Mass, no matter how innocent or well-intentioned they may be, turn the Mass into a dance recital where God has become an invited guest. Such things only contribute to the harm of seeing the Liturgy as a performance, where human achievement is publicly recognized and praised.  Consequently, human achievement becomes the focus of the proceedings.  It is equated and, more often than not, raised above the praise of God as the focus.

How we worship reflects what we believe and how we live.  If we live only thinking of how great we are, we will believe that we are so great that our worship should, and must, reflect our greatness.  Don’t we sing well and read well?!  Are we not good!?  Didn’t we even do a good job painting the rectory fence?!

Some clergy and laity are critical of coffee and cake socials after Mass.  They say these should not be the reason that people come to Mass.  Yet they seem to not mind applause and photos during Mass!

God Should be the focus of the Liturgy

If we truly love God above all things, then we should worship Him above all things.

I encourage you to seek out Masses where God is the focus throughout the Liturgy. Seek out  Liturgies that are not celebrating human achievement, interrupted by applause or photos.  But if you find yourself at a Liturgy where applause and photos break out where worshiping God should be the only concern, quietly offer your discomfort to His Holy Will.

Pray for those misguided by these things. Perhaps, when you get the chance, also diplomatically and (in these days) courageously, bring up your concerns when appropriate.  Raise your heart, mind, soul, and eyes to God instead of raising your hands to applaud or take photos.

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5 thoughts on “Selfies at Calvary: The New Golden Calf . . . is Us”

  1. Pingback: TVESDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit

  2. The question I find it most telling to ask myself repeatedly today: “is my motive to seek and discover God so that I can know the truth, or am I seeking God to find my own happiness?”
    Am I about me, or am I about God?

    1. Thank you Brian, for your powerful insight and point made. I agree with you that we each have to ask ourselves if this is all about me or about God. It really comes down to that issue. Those who argue that more solemnity is gloom and doom, and that our Faith should be about boisterous clapping, dancing, and celebrating, are merely doing what Pope Benedict noted in my piece, which is wanting their faith to their preference, on their terms, which is what the Israelites did with the golden calf. Thanks again, God Bless, and stay safe!

  3. an ordinary papist

    It’s not hard to remember the unrelievedly dark, ritual that was the Latin Mass. Having served countless high, low, funeral and celebratory masses, the one thing that seemed to always perforate the remembrance was the absence of joi de vive. It had to go, this under done over solemn bloodless sacrifice that Rome so ardently revised. Imagine listening to a foreign tongue not longer in extant being spoken by a man arrayed in black, barely acknowledging the faithful trying to cope with loss. By today’s clarity this was definitely not celebrating life, now transfigured into white and eulogized with quips and memories that lift the burden of burying a loved one. In the green of ordinary time one could hardly see the difference except outside the church, the weather was usually fair. Across the way different Christians were clapping, singing, punctuating the air with free will exclamations
    that remembered Christ in a lovelier light. Yes, I would take a selfie at Cana, on the mount, in a stable. I would applaud the ascending risen Jesus going up, home to make mansions for those He chose to be near. Jesus asked we focus on ourselves in relation to His word. He always faced us in all the testaments of the gospel, and answered question, I’m sure. The hosannas of holy week were replete with repetition throughout His ministry, at Cana, Capernaum, the pool of Bethesda You don’t attract a cast of 5000 by being a gloomy messiah. Having a ritual that focuses on a horrifically unjust event is not necessarily remembering Me. We have the wrenching guilt of Good Friday for that. The mass will
    be transformed again I’m sure, many times. The transition from Latin to vernacular will shift again, to sublime reverence it will soar, if only to celebrate the way humans respond to unconditional love.

    1. Your points are well taken, and I understand your concern that gloom and doom does not attract this world’s mentality. However, the events you mentioned that you would take selfies at were all perfectly ok for such thinking. Cana was a wedding, the Mount was a sermon outside of Mass, and Christmas was a birth. The Holy Mass is the source and summit of our faith. Numerous great minds such as Aquinas and others remind us constantly that the entire focus of the Mass should be on God. We remember what happened at Calvary because, whether we like it or not, the Crucifixion reminds us what He did for us, and what we therefore should be willing to do for Him. At the end of the day, if we want Calvary sanitized, and we want our Mass ( not a ritual) to be Easter all the time, then we are pretending that Holy Thursday and Good Friday did not happen, and you cannot have Sunday without the Thursday and Friday that came before it. Christ was all about joy and enjoying life, but He did not take on our humanity to have picnics and parties 24/7.

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