Five-Thousand Fessios

The priest faces the east instead of versus populum, Gregorian chant and Latin are preserved, reverence for the Blessed Sacrament is upheld, tabernacles are front and center, translations are faithful to the original text, continuity instead of impromptu and helter-skelter...and so on. You are in a Catholic Church in America.

Wake-up. It was all just a nice dream. Enter reality: liturgical life in the United States.

The priest positions his "chair" to face the people and talks (down) to you as a teacher does to a five-year-old. The altar is referred to as the table; the Eucharistic Sacrifice is the "family meal". Fr. Fireside Chat cracks one excruciatingly painful joke after another. He saunters about in the nave to get closer to the people and to make them feel totally awkward by forcing them to answer stupid questions in front of everyone. He croons about the warm fuzzies that come from helping old ladies cross the street, and about love and other controversial stuff. The responses are schmaltzy and less inspiring than Stewart Smalley. The tabernacle is crammed into one of the dark corners of the church, barely visible but for the small candle (hopefully) flickering next to it. People kibitz loudly before during and after Mass about everything but God and Sacrament. The self-inflated, "Just try to ignore us!" choir usually acts as though they're performing on Broadway with Carol Channing.

In short: Out of control. And this is simply the average parish. I'm not even going to get into the clown Masses, the relentless incursions of feminism, or other far more egregious things that are all too common in far too many parishes. The way things are, one must feel relieved if it's bad, because at least it was not that bad.

Here's an excellent article on the liturgy from Ignatius Insight. Written by Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J. in 2000, it covers all the basics about what's right and what's wrong about liturgical life in America since Vatican II. While reading this, I couldn't help but think, what if every priest in America had the liturgical vision of Fr. Fessio? (And hence, the odd title for this post) Things no doubt would be vastly different from today. His observations on the origins of Gregorian chant are fascinating, while his thoughts on Archbishop Rembert Weakland are enlightening, if not all that surprising.

Another question that kept cropping up was this: Where is there a correct implementation of Vatican II? In other words, where is the much vaunted "reform of the reform"? Now, I'm not suggesting that all priests are in error or sinning when it comes to facing the people, etc. Fr. Fessio elaborates more on this in his piece. But things vary so much now from parish to parish (some far worse than others of course) and all the aberrations outlined here by Fessio have long since become the norm. As a result, one would be hard pressed to find a parish in America that conforms across the board to the actual and not imagined reforms of Vatican II. In light of this, I can understand the rise in popularity of the Old Latin Mass and can see why so many find in it a secure refuge.

An excerpt:

Let me tell you what it [Vatican II] did not say. The Council did not say that tabernacles should be moved from their central location to some other location. In fact, it specifically said we should be concerned about the worthy and dignified placing of the tabernacle. The Council did not say that Mass should be celebrated facing the people. That is not in Vatican II; it is not mentioned. It is not even raised in the documents that record the formation of the Constitution on the Liturgy; it didn't come up. Mass facing the people is a not requirement of Vatican II; it is not in the spirit of Vatican II; it is definitely not in the letter of Vatican II. It is something introduced in 1969.

And, by the way, never in the history of the Church, East or West, was there a tradition of celebrating Mass facing the people. Never, ever, until 1969.