Today I experienced
something I have never experienced before. It is one of those things that make
you realize how lucky you have been in your life until that very moment. Before
I tell you what happened I need to give you some background. I do not
consider myself ultra-conservative when it comes to the mass, however I'm not
one for liturgical dancing either. Liturgically, I consider myself middle of
the road with a few lane changes to the left or to the right depending on the
circumstances of the moment. The extent of my experience with liturgical abuses
is what I have seen posted in Youtube and to this my reaction has always been
to laugh it out and move on. Until today.
As it happens I'm
visiting my dad for a week to spend some quality time with him and allow my
sister (his primary care giver) some quality time with her family.
Usually when I come to visit I attend mass at my original parish church. Since
the mass times were not convenient, today I decided to attend mass at another
parish with a more convenient time (I'm trying to stay general when it comes to
details to protect the privacy of everyone involved, priest and congregation).
I showed up a bit early to have some time to wander around the almost 300 years
old church I was visiting and enjoy some personal prayer time. In my wanderings
I found myself standing in front of a very realistic crucifix. I was taken a
back at the realism of this piece of art and started to reflect on the
pain our Lord suffered for the sake of my own sins. As I went deeper in my
reflection I realized I was experiencing a deep feeling of spiritual anguish. I
was surprised by this and spent the rest of my time kneeling in front of the Blessed
Sacrament wondering what the deal was with these feelings from just a few
seconds ago. Mass was about to start so I walked to the very front pew and sat.
How little did I know that soon all my questions about the source of spiritual
anguish were going to be answered!
I have never
experienced a mass such as this. To say that the priest committed a few
liturgical abuses is to put it nicely. Let me just mention the ones which come
to my mind right at the moment.
- The priest’s greeting for the mass was "The grace of our Lord Jesus who died for our sins be with you". My first thought when I heard this was "What about God the Father, and the Holy Spirit??? I hope this is a Trinitarian Mass".
- The penitential rite was the priest leading us in a "Yoga breathing exercise" while repeating a mantra.
- There was no "May almighty God have Mercy on us". In fact there was no Kyrie. I was left wondering: "are my sins forgiven? Is the Blessed Mother, angels and saints praying for me??
- During the homily I learned that
- Paul was a misogynist and a Manichean.
- Most demoniacs Jesus healed were just misunderstood epileptics.
- We should listen to what the UN tells us about the environment.
- The church is homophobic.
- A homily is a good place to quote Nietzsche.
- Once the homily was over (thankfully!!) we were led into the creed by the priest asking us "Do you believe in..." and us answering with the mantra we had just learned during the penitential rite. This ancient rite culminated by us assenting our belief in the "the Church which is One, Holy, Catholic, SINFUL and apostolic".
- During the "agnus dei" the priest gave a host to each extraordinary minister of communion, which they held in front of them and consumed at the same time the priest did (As if they were priests too!) after the recitation of "Lord I'm not worthy to receive you..."
Needless to say
by then my jaw was hitting the ground! I kept asking myself “what am I supposed
to do? Should I just walk away?" (Remember I was sitting in the first
pew!), but if I walk away, wouldn't I be abrogating my responsibility as
clergy? I have always advised people that when they witness one the things I
just described, the only course of action is to confront the priest after mass
and let them know that we were not happy with the fact that he gave us their
own personal version of the mass and not the mass of Jesus Christ.
On the other
hand, I was just visiting, and "incognito", nobody knew I'm a
permanent deacon; why should I get involved in parish politics so far away from
my own archdiocese?...I'm ashamed to say these were the arguments I used to
convince myself that I should just sit down and endure the rest of mass until I
could quietly walk away during the offertory collection...until and old
gentlemen tapped me on the shoulder and said quietly "Could you help
collecting the offering?" "GREAT!" I though "Now I'm
STUCK!" I took the basket and walked with him down the middle isle of the
church helping collect the community's offering.
When we
finished with the collection we moved to the consecration of the bread and
wine. Up to that moment I was convinced I was witnessing an illicit mass; but
when the priest changed the words of institution during the consecration of the
wine I let out an audible groan from my lips. This mass was not only
illicit but now it was dangerously close to be invalid! What was I supposed to
do now?! I couldn't in good conscience walk away from this mess (I mean mass)
without confronting this priest. Once gain I heard a little voice in my mind reminding
me that this was not my parish, or diocese so, why make a fuss??...and once
again I figure I should receive communion, but just the Body of Christ. Here I
gave father the benefit of the doubt and assumed father had the right intention
when he "kind of" followed the rubrics for the consecration of the
bread. However I could not in good conscience partake of the wine since he had
completely botched the words of institution for that one! Mercifully, by
counting the vessels on the altar I realized that this was a "communion
with one form" parish.
So I told myself "after
communion, I will quietly sneak out"... As I was on my way out, for a
second time, I was stopped by the same gentlemen who once again asked me if I
could help with the second collection!! By then, I had gotten the message. The
reason why I decided to attend this mass on the first place, the reason why I
had experienced the spiritual anguish before mass, the reason why I had been
stopped (twice!) from leaving, was because I had to fraternally admonish this
priest.
After mass I waited
until most people were gone and approached father trying to figure how to do
this in the most non-confrontational way possible. I figure that I could live
with most of the abuses but changing the words of institution was something I
could not in good conscience ignore since this act was spiritually dangerous
for this priest and his congregation. I put my hand on his shoulder and said
quietly "Father, I'm a permanent deacon visiting for the day, please do
not take this the wrong way, I'm saying this in the most fraternal way I can,
please do not change the words of institution again!!" He looked at me
confused and just mumbled "Its the translation, I just read what is in it,
this is how we do it in this diocese" turned around and quickly walked
away. My heart ached. I tell you reader, I don't know what was more
painful, enduring this mass, or watching this priest walk away from me.
After this (very painful)
experience I kept asking myself if I fulfilled my obligation (of course there
is the question of: Was this a mass? Did I fulfill my SUNDAY obligation? But
those should be part of a different blog post). The bottom line is: I don't
know. I know one thing. I learned a lot with this event. I learned a lot about
how the Lord uses me, about the anguish he feels when His mass is profaned,
about how much damage we can cause to the Body of Christ when we make the mass
"our mass". Still I live with the nagging question, should I have
said more?
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