Sed Contra

An Argument for Liturgical Professionalism

In a recent conversation with a priestly friend of mine, the topic of the sacred liturgy arose, though to be more specific, we talked at length about my preference for one form over another. During our exchange, Father remarked, “The Tridentine Mass is for professionals,” and something about that struck me. He elaborated, explaining that this form requires a deep familiarity with the liturgical calendar and the rubrics of the liturgy. This knowledge and discipline are, in his view, increasingly difficult to cultivate in the context of modern parish life. It requires a great deal more than the new form of the mass.

As a Dominican Friar, he naturally spoke at length about the Dominican Rite of the Mass, which, while similar to the Tridentine Liturgy, possesses its own nuances. He noted that this rite works well within his community because there are trained liturgists in the monastery who ensure the proper disposition necessary for a reverent and intentional celebration of feasts such as Rogation Days and others found in the traditional calendar. It leaves much to be desired, however, about the state of the laity in the modern era.

Rightly so, I found myself wondering: what has changed? How could this once have worked seamlessly sixty years ago, but now be deemed impractical? On a train ride home, the answer began to form. The issue isn’t so much the preference for the Extraordinary Form itself, but rather the widespread absence of intellectual formation—and dare I say, effort—on the part of many Catholics today.

I want to turn to Scripture, if only briefly, to recall Christ’s question to the apostles: “Who do you say that I am?” This question lies at the heart of the matter. How we answer it determines our liturgical orientation–lex orandi, lex credendi, as the phrase goes. For the less Latin-inclined amongst us, this means, “the law of prayer is the law of belief.” Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, once wrote that we are “always looking for the right way of honoring God, for a form of prayer and common worship that pleases God and is appropriate to His nature.” It is precisely for this reason, I believe, that the Tridentine liturgy is experiencing a resurgence. It is a form of popular piety, a grassroots effort to elevate Christian worship beyond what was established post-Council.

Ratzinger goes on to say that “popular piety is the soil without which the liturgy cannot thrive,” rightly observing that a general disdain, even contempt, for such piety has enabled a host of abuses. This is where I hope to draw attention: to the difference in ritual form. The preference for tradition, so often dismissed or suppressed by ecclesial authorities for its so-called “rigidity,” is born not of nostalgia, but of love for the Church’s history, for her saints, and for an inheritance that many feel was unjustly stripped away over the past six decades.

Popular piety, relatively speaking, is under attack. It is not that the old Mass and the old calendar are incompatible with modernity, but rather that they make real demands upon clergy and laity alike. In that sense, yes, the old Mass is “for professionals,” but, in the best sense, for those who understand that Roman Catholicism is grounded in real sacrifice and a profound spiritual wealth that endured in a particular form for over 1,600 years.

What, then, are we to do?

Again, I turn to Ratzinger, who asserted, “liturgical education today, of both priests and laity, is deficient to a deplorable extent.” There is much work to be done. By reorienting ourselves toward Christ and by ensuring that our liturgical encounter is more fitting of His sacrifice on the altar, we begin to participate in the vision the Council truly intended. As Ratzinger warns, “True liturgical education cannot consist in learning and experimenting with external activities,” but must instead lead us to “...the essential actio that makes the liturgy what it is toward the transforming power of God, who wants, through what happens in the liturgy to transform us and the world.” Simply put, we must reorient toward the Orient. We have lost sight of what makes the liturgy the liturgy.

So, in keeping with Ratzinger’s thought, the way forward may well be a step backward. The deplorable state of catechesis is not a mere talking point, but a massive pastoral crisis. Those Catholics best described as well-catechized are often the very ones drawn to traditional liturgy, even within the new form. The “professionalism” I mentioned earlier should not be the exception, but rather, it should be the norm. Confirmed Catholics ought to know the major feasts, what Rogation Days are, and how to address a bishop or a cardinal. These are little things, but to say that a mass lacks function because of our lack of formation is a gross misrepresentation of the problem manifest before us today.

Still, knowledge alone is not sufficient. As St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” In the end, our task is not just to know but to love. To love is to know, and the only way to know is to pursue a further depth of knowledge in order that our hearts might be fed with the spiritual milk that brings us to maturity.

—In Corde Mariæ—