Liturgy and the totus Christus

Showing a picture he took of a Lutheran chapel in Denmark, where he was participating in a conference of the European Hymn Society, Benedictine priest, musician and liturgical scholar, Fr Anthony Ruff (who I had the pleasure of meeting more than 20 years ago), where he celebrated Mass, noted that while "the Lutherans still use the medieval high altar of the former Cistercian monastery," he, a Catholic monk, "set up an altar/table facing the people."

In a further comment he noted something that strikes me as tremendously important:

If ad or[i]entem reinforces a sense of community - we're all facing the same direction and the priest is one of us - it's a good thing. If, however, it reinforces that the priest is doing Mass FOR the people or ON BEHALF OF the people - which can easily be the impression, then we have a major theological problem. Not denying at all the indispensible [sic] and irreplacea[b]le role of the ordained priest in the (communal) offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass, it is a distortion to think that the ordained priest is the mediator. He ain't. Christ is. It's also a distortion to think that only he shares in Christ's priesthood - which is a very widespread misconception. This is totally false - just look at the rite of baptism - all share in the priesthood through baptism

All I can say is, I agree. This is an important point to be discussed among those of us who care deeply about the sacred liturgy.

In my experience in pastoral ministry and on-line, the "major theological problem" Fr Ruff identifies is usually the crux of the matter. This ties very much into the reception, or non-reception, of the Second Vatican Council. It has to do with something far more fundamental than the liturgical reforms that followed the Council. It goes to those things on which the reform is based: a renewed and restored ecclesiology and theology of the Council as expressed in the Dogmatic Constitutions and the Pastoral Constitution. As it pertains to the liturgy, this results in the importance for all to fully, actively, and consciously participate.

Lutheran Church in Logumkloster, Denmark, by Fr Anthony Ruff, OSB

I have heard/read a number of people lately speak/write about wanting to worship in the Extraordinary Form precisely so as not to participate. I read one piece in the Catholic Herald yesterday, by a U.S. blogger, (not sure how they settled on him, retrograde and crosswise would be kind ways of describing his stance) who was lamenting things like formation for marriage and having children baptized. The whole concept of and our need for Christian koinonia, which is rooted in our participation in the Eucharist, seems lost on many people.

Do we need silence, space and quiet time for recollection and contemplation? Yes! I am an advocate for more silence than we often have at Mass: a pause before the Confiteor or penitential litany at least long enough to silently recite an Act of Contrition, some silence after the first reading, Psalm, and second reading, a few moments of reflection after the homily, a pause between the end of the Communion Rite and the Prayer After Communion. But we should have a prayer life outside of Mass, too, one that brings us to the Eucharist and enhances our participation in the Mass.

A dilemma someone posed to me about whether the liturgy is the work of God or work of the people strikes me as utterly misguided. It seems to me a classic false dilemma. If one chooses to impale him/herself on either horn of this dilemma I can't help but see that s/he runs the risk of rendering the liturgy practically meaningless- it would result in a fatal disconnection or dysfunction in one's conception of what is happening, which impacts how one engages at Mass. Therefore, it seems to me the only Christian approach is to grasp that the liturgy is at one and the same time the work of God and the work of God's people, the Church, who together constitute the totus Christus- the total or complete Christ. Stated simply, Baptism and Confirmation matter for Eucharist.