Those Little Nods

Recently I read an article written by a man who is apparently a convert to Catholicism. The article was a complaint about traditionalist Catholics, whom he finds inflexible and humorless in their loyalty to the extraordinary form of the Mass. The core of his message was that Catholics should not worry about the small things in the Liturgy.

There is some merit is not “sweating the small things.” However, there are not many truly “small” things in the Sacred Liturgy. Further, I suspect that his lack of experience in the Church and the battle over the last forty years to protect the Liturgy from desacralization prevents him from having the kind of sensitivity to the destruction that follows from seemingly minor acts and omissions.

Somewhere near the top of the list of small things with big effects is the little bow before the tabernacle that now replaces a worshipful genuflection. After the Council the word went out from the liturgical command posts in chancery offices: Bowing is equal to genuflection and even preferable because we are friends of Jesus our human brother. In my supposedly conservative parish the Blessed Sacrament is in the center of the sanctuary. However, men, women, priests, deacons, cantors, and altar servers now trot around in the church, and in the sanctuary, back and forth in front of the tabernacle with surly and silly little nods of the head. Lately they have perfected the “moving nod,” never breaking stride as they make a little tiny bow while going from point A to point B in the sanctuary.

Genuflections before the Real Presence seem to be just too much trouble for these busy, important people. Likely even the little nods will disappear in time, along with their faith. If we don’t act like we believe, it is probable that we don’t believe. And, too, those little eyes out there in the pews are watching all of this. The pitiful little nods do have an effect on the children of the parish who take their cues from those in authority, and are now busy copying their lazy elders.

That there is a crowd trotting around the sanctuary is the result of another “small” item. At one time there was a rail that separated the sanctuary from the rest of the church. The lay sinners stayed in their place in the nave, and the ordained sinners in their place in the sanctuary. The latter engaged in their priestly mission of offering the Holy Sacrifice of Mass, the actual re-presentation of the Last Supper, Calvary, and the Resurrection, and the former joined with their priest in worship and praise. But another decree came forth from the liturgical command posts: Tear out all communion rails, and build none in new churches. “We are all priests,” they said. My 19th century parish church building was spared the iconoclast’s destruction of the communion rail, but they managed to get the center gates of the rail. And like the siege and defeat of an ancient city, when the gates were gone the liturgical barbarians poured into the sanctuary to pillage the pure, the beautiful, and the holy.

There is an element here of the ancient Jews and their unholy “incident” with that golden calf. As Pope Benedict reminds us, the real sin of those Jews was their prideful demand that God come down to their level. Those who refuse to genuflect before the Real Presence, especially those priests who refuse to genuflect at the consecration and Holy Communion, belong to the golden calf crowd, demanding that the God of all creation be equal to them.

Section 274 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal is not ambiguous: “All who pass before the Most Blessed Sacrament genuflect, unless they are moving in procession. ” At Mass the priest and servers genuflect upon approaching and leaving the altar “if the Blessed Sacrament is present in the sanctuary.” During Mass the priest genuflects at the consecration after each “showing” and “before Communion.”

The sanctuary gates in my church will probably not be replaced, but I pray that my priests and fellow Catholics will come to act like they really believe that He “before whom every knee should bend” is truly present, and worthy of more than a surly and silly little nod, even if they can do it on the run.