It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over (And This Ain’t Bubba’s Diner)

Once I was in a beautiful old Roman church for Mass. As we went forward to receive Holy Communion, I heard the sound of dishes being set out in the back of the church, as the smell of coffee wafted through the nave. After Communion the principal celebrant announced that coffee and rolls were available after Mass. He then hurriedly recited the Prayer after Communion, gave the blessing, and proceeded with the other concelebrants, fully vested, straight to the donut table, followed by much of the congregation. That beautiful baroque church, with its magnificent sacred space of gold, marble, beautiful paintings, and exquisite architecture, had become Bubba’s Baroque Diner.

A similar experience happened recently in another beautiful church in another place. The priest sat for 5 seconds or less at the “presider” chair after the distribution of Holy Communion, and then came to the ambo where he made a rousing appeal for a parish fundraiser. Oddly, when he finished the appeal he abruptly changed topics, and complained that some parishioners were cutting the Mass short by leaving early. He then recited the Prayer after Communion, gave the blessing, and hustled his way down the aisle.

In both cases the priests concluded the Communion Rite in a manner inconsistent with the General Instruction of The Roman Missal. “When the distribution of Communion is finished, as circumstances suggest, the priest and faithful spend some time praying privately. If desired, a psalm or other canticle of praise or a hymn may also be sung by the entire congregation.” §88  “To bring to completion the prayer of the People of God, and also to conclude the entire Communion Rite, the priest says the Prayer after Communion, in which he prays for the fruits of the mystery just celebrated. The people make the prayer their own by the acclamation, “Amen. ” §89 When, and only when, the Communion Rite is properly concluded with the Prayer after Communion, §90 states that it then is time for “brief announcements, if they are necessary ” (emphasis added).

Changing the way the Communion Rite is concluded may seem to some to be insignificant and harmless, but that is not correct. Virtually any change to the Sacred Liturgy, including arranging a new ending to the Communion Rite, is serious business and has serious consequences. In the examples at the two churches, the Sacred Liturgy was not the main and only event, and was thereby diminished. The unity of the Communion Rite was severed. More importantly, worship was diluted. Our attention was abruptly summoned away from the Divine Object of our worshiping gaze. The profound stillness lingering in our midst after our brief encounter with perfect and eternal love in the Mass was interrupted with the shrill sound of the profane and the unimportant.

The priest who hurries the Sacred Liturgy or, worse, changes it to meet his own personal agenda, whether choreographing a new conclusion to the Mass or manipulating it for some secular purpose acts improperly for several reasons. First, it diminishes the Holy Eucharist. In Ecclesia De Eucharistia Pope John Paul II admonished priests to avoid diminishing the Eucharist. “By giving the Eucharist the prominence it deserves, and by being careful not to diminish any of its dimensions or demands, we show that we are truly conscious of the greatness of this gift” (§61).

Further, the diminution of the Eucharist almost always involves the misuse of sacred space. Our consecrated churches are not auditoriums or local diners. Rather, they are special earthly venues where we join in that Mystery of Faith we call the Holy Eucharist, that cosmic event we know as the eternal offering of the Son to the Father in the Holy Spirit. The church is holy ground that we set aside to be as free as possible from earthly distractions so that we may surrender ourselves to that eternal offering.

Jesus took a rope to the money changers and merchants in the temple in Jerusalem to run them off because the temple was a place of worship of the Father, his Father and “our Father.” It was a temporal place, but not a place to advance temporal matters, even temporal matters related to worship. It was a place of earthly creation where the faithful came to prostrate themselves in worship of the Creator of the earth.

A second reason personal changes are improper is that the Liturgy is the public act of the Church, not of an individual member of the Church, and the regulation of the Liturgy is a matter solely of the Apostolic See. “Absolutely no other person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the Liturgy on his own authority” (Sacrosanctum Concilium #22.)

Finally, the priest who changes the Liturgy has lost the proper perspective. As Jesus taught his apostles when he rebuked Peter, priests must think like God and not like human beings. The Liturgy is a pure gift from the Divine Creator, and can easily become defiled by individual arrogance. Pope Benedict XVI has repeatedly taught that we do not create the Liturgy, we receive it. Francis Cardinal Arinze says in his book, Celebrating The Eucharist : “The Mass is not something we invent, something we put together…No! The Eucharistic Sacrifice is something we received in faith, reverence, and thanksgiving” (page 45).

Protecting the prominence of the gift of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, in obedient union with the Church, is the task of both priest and laity. The Liturgy is the eternal sacrificial prayer and offering from the Son to the Father in the Holy Spirit. We are permitted in our limited human way to participate, but we are not permitted to interfere. When a pastor takes control of the Liturgy with his personal agenda, no matter how well intentioned or how noble the purpose, he interferes. He goes where he has no right to go, and does what he has no right to do.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar made the point well:

No liturgy designed by men could be “worthy” of the subject of their homage of God at whose throne the heavenly choirs prostrate themselves with covered faces, having cast off their crowns and ornaments before offering adoration. The attempt to return to him who “created all according to his will” the honor that all creatures received must a priori compel to its knees an earthly community of sinners. Domine, non sum dignus! If such a community, meeting for praise and worship, should have anything else in mind than adoration and self-oblation — for example, self-development or any other project in which they place themselves thematically in context next to the Lord who is to be worshipped — then they naively deceive themselves. This topic can be touched only with fear and trembling (Balthasar, Grandeur of the Liturgy , Communio 5, no. 4 (1978), 344).