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Epidemic and the liturgical reform
The current crisis is forcing us to reconsider some of the assumptions of the past half century, says Joseph Shaw
The Church reformed the liturgy at a moment of great optimism. The developed world was enjoying the long post-war boom. Seminaries were full. And new-fangled antibiotics and vaccination programs were sweeping away one major disease after another. It is not surprising to find that when medieval-style pestilence stalks the streets, the Church has to reach back into the past, before that brief gilded historical moment, for responses.
The most obvious example is ‘Spiritual Communion’: the practice of uniting oneself in prayer to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, since one is not able to receive sacramentally. Our predecessors in the Faith used to do this at the great majority of the Masses they attended, either formally or informally, since they received Holy Communion only once or a few times a year. When I mentioned the practice as a response to the epidemic in a letter to the UK’s liberal Catholic weekly, The Tablet, the first response of one priest was ridicule. We wouldn’t, he wrote, have a ‘spiritual collection’, would we?
He will have written his reply before public liturgies were suspended. I doubt he is laughing now.
The crisis is forcing us to reconsider some of the assumptions of the past half century. Is there any point in celebrating Mass without the people? Must we act out the ‘Sign of Peace’ with handshakes, rather than make a focused spiritual connection with a ceremonial Kiss of Peace in the Sanctuary? Is sharing saliva in the Chalice among the congregation really a good idea? What exactly is gained by not adding exorcised salt to the Holy Water? Should the people, after all, be encouraged to take home blessed objects, holy water, and palms, to decorate their houses with blessed images of Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Saints, and to wear scapulars and holy medals? Can Holy Communion be given outside Mass?
The claim, now very much disputed, 2 that the Reception of Holy Communion on the tongue is less hygienic than reception in the hand, has obscured the fact that the ancient liturgical tradition is in a number of ways more suited than the Ordinary Form to times of public health concern. After all, this tradition had to cope with such times repeatedly. But there is more to it than a matter of outward ceremonies and practices. The more fundamental question is the balance of liturgical mentality, if we may speak of such a thing, between the social and supernatural dimensions of the liturgy.
Masses without the people are instinctively regarded as pointless by many Catholics today because they obviously have no social dimension: unless, in an attenuated way, through live-streaming. They have forgotten that the celebration of Mass brings blessings on the whole Church, on the living and the living and dead, and is an act of worship for the glory of God.
Holy Communion is re-focused, in this mentality, away from the reverence needed for the reception of the Living God under the sacramental signs, to the social connection between members of the congregation. Those caught up in this way of thinking want to make it as much as possible like an ordinary meal: greeting people with a handshake, facing one’s host across a table, picking up bits of food with the fingers, sharing from the same batch of prepared food, and accompanying this with a drink. In theological reality, while the Mass is a meal, from the Last Supper onwards it has been a ritual meal: a meal focused on supernatural realities, not social or nutritional ones.
‘Is there any point in celebrating Mass without the people?’
© John Aron
The prioritizing of the meal symbolism was intended to facilitate the transformation of the ordinary world by the values inculcated by the Mass. One difficulty this plan has encountered is that the most emphasized values are now natural, rather than supernatural: in the approving words of one official document from the 1970s, ‘valores humana’, as opposed to ‘valores Christiana’. 3 The older tradition made the Mass something mysterious and supernatural with exactly the same end result in view: the transfer of these values to the Faithful and to the world. The Faithful responded by bringing something of the numinous liturgical atmosphere back into their own homes by the use of blessed objects, and in their domestic liturgical and paraliturgical devotions. The supernatural values of the Mass permeated the home, and made Mass linger throughout the working week.
This is a matter of emphasis, rather than a denial by either side of the less emphasized values, but the emphasis is strong enough to have an effect on the Faith of the people, and to appear to validate modern errors.
The shift of emphasis was systematically rolled out in the liturgical reform, and it was only by a sort of diplomatic politeness that official documents could in later decades feign surprise that, for example, priests had stopped celebrating private Masses, 4 and popular devotions and the use of blessed objects had almost completely disappeared from swathes of Catholic culture. 5
Indeed, over the decades since the reform a proportion of the Faithful have ceased to believe the supernatural claims of the Catholic Faith. Most famously, a Pew study found that only half self-identified Catholics believe in the Real Presence. 6 Some of these people still attend Mass, since alongside of the force of habit, they value the social aspect of the liturgy. One consequence is the number who lapse when Mass times change and churches close, rather than moving to another time slot or church. If the social network which their regular Mass represents is disrupted, such nominal Catholics cease to have a sufficient reason to attend.
How many of the Catholics whose attendance depends on this social value will return to regular practice after the epidemic ends will, no doubt, depend on how long it lasts.
More robust, in this situation, is a form of liturgical participation which is interior and spiritual. The dramatic and touching ceremony of the Pax in the Missa Solemnis of the Extraordinary Form has the celebrant kiss the Altar and embrace the deacon, and then the deacon the subdeacon, and then the subdeacon the Master of Ceremonies. The congregation participate spiritually, though separated from these proceedings by the Altar rail, or possibly even a Rood Screen: they will find it easier to participate in it still more remotely, perhaps through a live-streamed Mass, than those who value most the social connection of the handshake of the Ordinary Form. In the same way, the Faithful who see the reception of Holy Communion in firmly supernatural terms, will miss it, certainly, if they cannot get it, but will be able to find a lesser, but still satisfying, way of engaging with the spiritual reality at a distance, with an Act of Spiritual Communion.
The connection between Mass and Holy Communion which is encouraged by the primacy of meal symbolism has made us forget the very recent past in which Catholics not only received infrequently, but usually received outside Mass: for example, between Masses. This practice served to emphasis the unity of the Mass and the Victim. When the first restrictions were introduced, and Mass attendance became impossible, almost no-one suggested reception of Holy Communion outside Mass as an alternative, although the risk of infection could clearly be managed more easily in this context, by limiting the number of communicants; by the priest cleansing his fingers before and after the ceremony; by performing the ceremony outside; and so on. This may become an issue again as restrictions are scaled back.
Our enforced ‘fast’ from Holy Communion will do much to restore the fame eucharistica, ‘eucharistic hunger’, the lack of which Pope John II so lamented. 7 It is to be hoped that priests will encourage the Faithful to make the most of Holy Communion when it is possible again, by careful preparation, ideally including fasting, an act of Perfect Contrition (or if possible Sacramental Confession), and prayer, and to follow it with a serious thanksgiving.
It is dangerous to speculate too early about the long-term consequences of the current epidemic, but it will certainly have some. It seems likely that among them will be a shedding of the naivety about hygiene which characterizes modern liturgical practice. It is to be hoped that this will be accompanied by a restoration of a more acute awareness of spiritual realities, and of the practices which have historically served to nurture that awareness.
1. Fr Sillience, ‘Letters’, The Tablet 21st March 2020
2. See the medical advice given to Archbishop Sample of Portland, OR, USA, and Archbishop Eguren of Piura, Peru.
3. Congregation for Divine Worship Directory for Masses with Children (1973) 9: ‘These [human] values include the community activity, exchange of greetings, capacity to listen and to seek and grant pardon, expression of gratitude, experience of symbolic actions, a meal of friendship, and festive celebration.’
4. Pope Benedict XVI Post-Synodal Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (2007): 80
5. Congregation for Divine Worship Directory of Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001): 1
6. See “Christian belief in and knowledge of Transubstantiation” https://nineteensixty-four. blogspot.com/2010/10/christian-belief-in-andknowledge-of.html
7. Pope John Paull II Letter Dominicae Cenae (1980): 11
