This fall will bring the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Fifty years is a long time and much of the Catholic world is not old enough to remember that historic event when some two and a half thousand Catholic bishops gathered in Rome each fall for four years. The first fruit of their work was the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, promulgated on December 4, 1943, a document that resulted in the revision of the entire liturgical life of Roman Rite Catholics.
That document states that every liturgical celebration is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church. To appreciate the import of that statement one needs to have lived before the Council.
In “The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described,” a 469 page handbook describing the proper celebration of the liturgy, published in 1937, there is not a single entry in the index for “laity” or “congregation.” The Mass was the action of the priest. The congregation was extraneous to the proper celebration of the Mass.
By the mid-2oth century the “dialogue Mass’ began to be introduced, a Mass in which the congregation answered the prayers of the Mass together with the servers. This was considered a concession. In the 1950’s the seminarians at St. Joseph’s College, the minor seminary for the Archdiocese of San Francisco that I attended, the seminarians were permitted to join the servers in responding to the priest three mornings a week.
About 1960, the Congregation of Rites which was in charge of the liturgy of the Roman Rite had some concerns about this practice and published a document which prohibited the congregation from praying the Lord’s Prayer aloud in the vernacular while the priest was saying it in Latin.
An early 20th century catechism presents the understanding of the Mass that was common prior to the Council. A Catechism of the Catholic Religion by Bishop Louis Mary Kink, Bishop of Leavenworth, revised edition 1943, was designated as the official textbook for parochial schools in that diocese.
The book has three chapters under the heading The Holy Eucharist: On the Institution of the Holy Eucharist, On Holy Communion, and On the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
The first chapter begins “The greatest of all the sacraments is the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is the greatest of all the sacraments, because it is Jesus Christ, from whom we receive all grace.” It concludes: “The real presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist requires that we offer Him our must humble and fervent adoration.”
The second chapter, On Holy Communion, in answering the question, What graces does Holy Communion give to our soul” says: “Holy Communion unites us most intimately with Jesus, increases sanctifying grace, and strengthens us in the practice of virtues.”
The third chapter, On the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, begins: “The greatest act of religion is sacrifice, which is a visible gift offered to God by a priest who destroys it to acknowledge God’s supreme dominion over life and death.”
It then explains that”The shedding of the blood and the death of Jesus take place in Holy Mass by the double consecration of the bread and wine.”
It continues “Christ gave the power to offer the sacrifice of the Mass to His Apostles and their successors in the priesthood” and “The principal parts of the Mass are the Offertory, the Consecration, and Communion.”
Note that the principal parts of the Mass do not include the scripture readings, the liturgy of the Word.
Mass takes place through the power given to the priest; there is no reference to the working of the Holy Spirit. And communion is seen only in terms of the individual and Christ.
The simple but profound greeting at the beginning of Mass, “The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all,” which did not exist in the earlier form of the Mass, invites a much richer understanding of the Mass.
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