ARTICLE

THE EUCHARIST

Benedict M. Ashley, O.P.

1.

We have all suffered at Mass from the intrusive, even sometimes heretical modifications of the liturgical texts by "creative" priests; from the banal translations of some of these texts; from the inaudible or mangled reading of them by lay readers; from fatuous hymns or badly strummed guitars, etc., etc. Should we blame this on Vatican II and its Novus Ordo and call for a return to the "Tridentine" Mass?

Mangled liturgy did not start with Vatican II. As a convert, received into the Church 25 years before Vatican II, I had the good fortune first to attend the Eucharist in a parish where the old liturgy was performed with great care. Soon, however, I discovered that in Chicago this was exceptional. Daily Mass was usually always a requiem "black Mass" and the choir was only the organist, who usually had repeated this same music so many times that it was reduced to a rattle of notes and a jumble of scrambled Latin. The celebrant, too, read everything to himself, often at remarkably high speed. A veteran priest I knew, when asked how he managed to get so quickly through a low Mass (considerably longer then than now), replied, "You have to say the words not only breathing out, but breathing in."

The laity, for their part, were scattered widely through the church reciting their Rosaries or reading their missals. What was even odder was that in many parishes the school Sisters, in order to have time to make their required meditation period before rushing to breakfast and the classroom, commonly received Holy Communion before Mass. It was not uncommon, because of the fast from midnight before Holy Communion, that no one received Communion at the Solemn High Mass on Sunday.

In the Dominican monastery where I lived we had in the basement a long corridor nick-named "The Bowling Alley," lined on one side with many altars, screened from each other only by a shallow partition, at which each priest said "his Mass" daily, assisted by a single server. Since most of the friars were busy at the principal Mass going on in the chapel, a few others often served more than one of these "private" Masses in the Bowling Alley simultaneously, hopping from one altar to another!

I relate these facts not to mock the past, to which I look back with affection, but to point out that while a beautiful and reverent liturgy is a blessed help to prayer, the Eucharist is not primarily an aesthetic experience but an act of faith, no matter how shabbily celebrated. Isaiah (53:2) prophesied of Jesus on the Cross, "There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that attracted us to him." Human ignorance, neglect, and folly throughout history have obscured the beauty of the liturgy, but we should not waste our energies at Mass fuming over liturgical aberrations when He is present before us crucified and risen as He was to the apostles. Complaints about liturgical abuses can be a sign of a wavering faith, as well as of an orthodox one.

2.

In the "old days" the chief cause of poor liturgy and of actual liturgical abuses, besides the human weaknesses with which we all struggle, was, I believe, the poor instruction of the clergy and their subsequent failure to communicate even their often inadequate liturgical understanding to the people. In its very first decree, Dec. 4, 1963, Sacrosanctum Concilium, "The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy" (no. 47-48), the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican showed the centrality of the Eucharist in the spiritual renewal of the Church. This decree commanded better liturgical education of priests and better liturgical catechesis of the people. I believe progress in this regard is taking place in our seminaries and will eventually reach the people if they are instructed according to the Second Part, "The Celebration of the Christian Mystery," and Part IV, "Christian Prayer" of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Unfortunately, the priests who missed this training before Vatican II or soon afterwards often viewed the reform not in the light of the actual decrees of Vatican II and its official implementation, but of popular sources or the notions of imaginative theologians or simply from the random innovations of their fellow-priests, faddish inventions supposed to be pastorally helpful. For a while in the 60's and 70's it seemed that every Mass was a new and sometimes absurd creation. It was forgotten that Sacrosanctum Concilium (no. 22) also says:

No other person [than "the Apostolic See, and as laws may determine, the bishop"] not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority."

We Catholics, priests and laity alike, need to make a serious effort to understand the purposes of the reforms promulgated by Vatican II, but already begun with the reform of the Breviary, of liturgical music, and frequent communion by St. Pius X and Pius XII's recentering of the liturgical year in the Easter Vigil. My observation is that both conservatives and liberals in the Church are often poorly acquainted with the purpose of the Council and the profoundly orthodox faith which inspired its renewal of the liturgy.

3.

The purpose of the Council in liturgical reform is very clearly stated in Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 47:

At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity [reference to St. Augustine], a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us [reference to Breviary and St. Thomas Aquinas]. The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ's faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators. On the contrary, through a good understanding of the rites and prayers they should take part in the sacred action, conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration. They should be instructed by God's word, and be nourished at the table of the Lord's Body. They should give thanks to God. Offering the immaculate victim, not only through the hands of the priest but also together with him, they should learn to offer themselves. Through Christ the Mediator [reference to St. Cyril of Alexandria], they should be drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and each other, so that finally God may be all in all.

This clearly is the same Eucharistic faith as that of the Council of Trent, but there is also the considered intention to shift the emphasis of Eucharistic devotion from the medieval focus (further exaggerated by polemics against the Reformation) on the Real Presence to a focus on the Real Action in the Eucharist. It is this that to some has seemed to play down the Real Presence. On reflection, however, it becomes obvious that presence and action are not in fact opposed. Metaphysics and common sense tell us that there can be no action without an agent, hence an action manifests the presence of the agent and is the best proof of that presence. Thus, to affirm the real action of Jesus in the Eucharist is to affirm in the most fundamental way that he, in his humanity and divinity, is really present.

Granted this obvious truth, why did the Council want to emphasize the Real Action? As Catholics we believe that this could only be because the Holy Spirit, supremely present in an ecumenical council of the episcopal college under the successor of St. Peter, has guided the Church to reaffirm some principle of its Sacred Tradition which in the course of history has suffered relative neglect. What was this neglect?

Certainly one of the great attractions of the Catholic liturgy is its antiquity. As a convert I can testify to this attraction which for me made the Catholic Church stand out in contrast to secularism and Protestantism. Antiquity is an essential element in the idea of "the holy" or "the sacred." Hence one of the most common complaints against the "Novus Ordo" is that it lacks "a sense of the sacred" given by age. The philosopher of religion Rudolf Otto in his well known phenomenological analysis of "the holy" describes it as "that which causes us to tremble yet at the same time attracts us." It does so because it speaks of Eternity in the midst of change, hence the sacred must be rooted in creation itself.

The Christian concept of "the holy", however, not only recalls the origin of all things. Even more surely it looks to their consummation, i.e., it is eschatological, invoking the Omega even more than the Alpha. Luke notes that at the Last Supper Jesus, as he instituted the Eucharist, made the prophetic promise that he would not eat or drink thus again with them "until the kingdom of God comes" (Lk 22:14-20). This prophecy was realized when he ate it again with them after he had risen (Lk 24:13-35) and is renewed in every Eucharist, which is, therefore, both a remembrance (anamnesis) of the past and an anticipation (prolepsis) of the future.

Historically, every renewal of the liturgy (and there have been many) moves toward the future by returning to the past to attain a greater clarity for the present. This is why many in the Church, indeed probably most Catholics received the Eucharistic renewal at first with enthusiasm. For them it rightly meant that the modern faith in progress and revolution pales in comparison to the Church's confident proclamation that the Kingdom of God has already begun on earth in the Church and will be totally triumphant at the end of history.

4.

How are these two aspects of good liturgy, commemoration and anticipation, to be achieved so as to manifest the Real Presence and Action here and now of Jesus in the Eucharist? In the early and patristic Church, down to medieval times, the balance of these aspects of the Eucharist Mystery was maintained by a lively sense of the action of Jesus present in the Eucharist. Christians did not think of him as passively present but as leading the Church, his Mystical Body, in its supreme act of worship. The faithful did not merely adore Christ really present; they joined with him in active participation by the power of his Holy Spirit.

After the patristic period in medieval times this patristic balance was disturbed by a greater felt need for an explicit affirmation of the substantial presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. In the period from the ninth to the eleventh century certain theologians, though they never denied the Real Presence, did question whether this "presence" meant the presence of Jesus' material Body and Blood or simply his spiritual presence. They were influenced by two tendencies still with us today: one the notion that an emphasis on the physical, material body of Jesus is not very "spiritual;" the other a doubt whether it is physically possible for one and the same material body to be simultaneously present in heaven and in many churches on earth.

In reaction to these doubts the Church encouraged such liturgical innovations as the Feast of Corpus Christi to make it unambiguously clear that Christ is present in the Eucharist in his Sacred Humanity. Officially this doctrine was expressed as "transubstantiation." In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries these controversies eventuated in the working out by theologians, notably St. Thomas Aquinas, of a rational explanation of why "transubstantiation" does not involve a physical impossibility.

This emphasis on the substantiality of the Eucharistic Presence, however, absolutely necessary as it was to preserve the Faith of the Church, could lead to an imbalance at the expense of the Eucharistic action. To take an extreme example: some places the laity, while Mass was going on, socialized outside in the churchyard until the time of the Consecration. Then a bell was rung to call them into the Church to see the Host elevated, after which they quickly returned to the yard and to their gossip!

In the Latin Church, as even today in the Eastern Church, the reservation of the Eucharistic Host had not been for public veneration but for communion of the sick. Gradually, however, customs of worshipping the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle and the monstrance were created at the request of contemplatives and became popular throughout the Latin rites.

Thus there developed in the Latin Church devotional practices which seemed to treat the Eucharist primarily as a Sacred Object to be contemplated and adored, rather than to focus on the Eucharistic Christ offering himself in the Mass through the priest and the people. Thus the participation of the laity was reduced to "assisting" (i.e., standing by) at the liturgical performances of the clergy while engaging in their own private devotions.

It would be quite wrong to consider these developments as errors or abuses. The sensus fidelium (or better sensus fidei of the Church as a whole), so often wrongly cited today in defense of dissent from the Magisterium, is evidence that this new medieval Eucharistic devotion was the work of the Holy Spirit to meet the spiritual needs of the time and hence it received the Magisterium's approval. But when such an emphasis became out of balance it could lead to dubious devotional attitudes. Thus in the nineteenth century the Eucharistic Christ was sometimes depicted on certain holy cards as "The Prisoner of the Tabernacle" with the Lord caged on the altar!

When Luther in the sixteenth century attempted to jettison philosophical theology and rely exclusively on biblical terminology, he jettisoned the term "transubstantiation" as not biblical, yet continued to affirm the real, corporeal presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Calvin, however, tended to explain this as a purely "virtual" presence, i.e., Jesus remained corporeally in heaven, but was present in the Eucharist in the same way as in the other sacraments, by his power but not his substance. Finally, Zwingli returned to the early medieval notion, as I have noted, which down-played corporeal presence for a purely spiritual one, as most American Protestants seem to hold.

A recent public opinion poll reported that the majority of American Catholics also, when asked whether Christ is present in the Eucharist "literally or symbolically," tend to choose the latter answer. Thus they seemed to have adopted the views of Calvin or even Zwingli, although we may benignly suppose that they were confused by the alternatives presented them. If they were better informed they would have answered that Jesus is present both literally and symbolically, since a sacrament is a symbol that effects what it signifies.

5.

Certainly Vatican II did not intend to minimize the substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but it wanted to make clearer that, as our Mediator, he is present in order to offer sacramentally to the Father by the power of his Holy Spirit the one, everlasting sacrifice of the Cross so that all the members of his Body, the Church might participate with him in that supreme act for the salvation of all humanity. The Church exists to "proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes" (1 Cor 11:26).

This emphasis on the participation of the faithful in the supreme act of Christ led the Council to decree certain changes in the existing rites of the Mass which were later faithfully implemented by subsequent popes. Some schismatics today deny that the Council had power to establish a Novus Ordo because Pius V (not the Council of Trent) declared his own reform of the Mass to be "perpetual." Hence they trust only in the validity of the so-called "Tridentine" Mass, which in fact St. Pius V never prescribed even for all Latin Rite Catholics.

These dissenters forget that according to Trent itself neither St. Pius V or any other pope or council has the authority (a) to change the essence (substance) of any sacrament nor; (b) fix its rites so as to remove the authority of subsequent popes and councils to change them. The Reformers had complained that the Roman Church made a major change in the Mass by reserving the reception of the Precious Blood to the clergy, whereas from New Testament and patristic times all Christians received communion under both species (a practice revived by Vatican II), but to this Trent responded that this change had been made for pastoral reasons and did not change the substance of the Sacrament, and it solemnly declared (Session 21, c.2):

In the Church there has always been the power in the dispensation of the sacraments to decree and change whatever it judges might be more effective to the benefit of the recipients or the veneration of these sacraments according to the differences of things, times, and places, preserving always their substance.

Thus the power to declare what is the unchangeable "substance" of a sacrament pertains to the apostolic authority of the pope and the bishops. We have recently seen John Paul II exercise this power in his definitive declaration Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that it belongs to the substance of the Sacrament of Holy Orders that the candidate for priesthood be male, a doctrine concurred in by the college of bishops when they were consulted on the Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 1577. It should be noted that Pius XII (and many popes before him as regards sacramental validity) before Vatican II had exercised this same power in declaring that the traditio instrumentorum or handing of the paten and chalice to the priestly ordinand are not of the substance of the Sacrament of Holy Orders as many medieval theologians, even St. Thomas Aquinas, had taught, but only the laying on of hands.

Thus Vatican II under John XXIII and Paul VI certainly had the apostolic authority in Sacrosanctum Concilium to make the liturgical changes for the pastoral purposes it states (no. 14):

In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy the full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered above all else, for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit. Therefore, in all their apostolic activity, pastors of souls should energetically set about achieving it through the requisite pedagogy.

The Council wanted to correct the medieval imbalance to again make it liturgically evident that Christ is really present in the Eucharist not primarily as an object of contemplation, but to lead the Church in its supreme act of worship of the Father in the Holy Spirit. Its pastoral motivation was to increase active participation in the liturgy by all members of the assembly in Christ's act. The faithful who really understand this aim will not be led to lessen their adoration of Jesus in the Tabernacle, but rather long to have time to thank their Savior for his sublime act in the Mass and in the gift of Holy Communion.

It was to facilitate this active participation that the Council decided to permit the use of the vernacular instead of Latin, to enlarge the number of responsive texts to be said by the congregation (e.g. Kyrie, Creed, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, etc.), and to encourage congregational singing. Before Vatican II the priest was required to recite all these himself silently, even if they were sung or said by the people. In fact, at most Masses the people made no responses at all. To improve the quality of liturgical music which long before Vatican II was in a sorry state, St. Pius X had encouraged the use of Gregorian chant. This reform, however, proved impractical because of the great technical gap between that form of music and that to which congregations became accustomed after the seventeenth century.

Even as regards those parts of the Mass during which the participation of those assembled is rightly that of active reception, the Council wanted to make this active reception easier by making the readings from Sacred Scripture more complete, balanced, and intelligible not only at Mass but in the performance of all the sacraments. Though the sacraments are effective ex opere operato, to be fully effective they also require active faith on the part of the receiver ex opere operantis. Therefore, the celebration of every sacrament, including the Eucharist, ought to begin with the proclamation of the Word of God. This union of Word and Sacrament was weakened in pre-Reformation times by inadequate instruction of a largely illiterate laity and after the Reformation by the Protestant neglect of the sacraments in favor of preaching the Word. Unfortunately, Catholics delayed in restoring this balance so that the action of the Council was almost too late, as is evident from the confusion with which it has been received in our increasingly secularized culture for which sacramental symbolism seems almost indecipherable.

Finally, the Council wished to free the existing liturgy from historical accretions introduced at various times for worthy purposes now no longer relevant. For example, the so-called Last Gospel (always John, Chapter 1) was recited, usually silently by the priest, at the altar at the end of Mass, although its original purpose was as a prayer to help the priest remain recollected as he walked from altar to sacristy. Hence, the Council urged (no. 34) that:

[T]he rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity. They should be short, clear, and free from repetitions. They should be within the people's powers of comprehension, and normally should not require explanation.

Today some see in this an excessive "rationalism" and blame it for the loss of a "sense of sacred" in the liturgy. It is, however, another case of the need for balance. The New Testament references to the Eucharist indicate great simplicity, but this simplicity was enriched by its close connection to the antecedent Jewish worship rich in tradition. St. Thomas Aquinas says that the Bible uses metaphors taken from the most ordinary daily experiences to reveal how incomparably greater is the Mystery which they symbolize. Thus the contrast between the lowliness of a symbol and the greatness of what it stands for is precisely what generates the sense of mystery in the Incarnation and in the sacraments which flow from it. Liturgy is best when this paradox is maintained.

The Church has always recognized that this balance is conditioned by the culture and times. The Eastern liturgies tend to symbolic complexity, but the Roman Rite of the Latin liturgy has always been marked by "a noble simplicity" somewhat overlaid in the course of time by gothic and eastern accretions, some of which have enriched it, while others have obscured it. What the Council hoped for was to restore the Western liturgy in a way that would maintain this tradition while adjusting it to modern culture as had been done in the past. Surely it would seem that in today's culture excessive complexity has to be avoided. What could be more sublimely simple or more filled with the sense of the sacred and of Mystery than Jesus' words, "This is my Body. This is my Blood!"

While it is certainly reasonable to criticize the details of how this simplification has in fact been done in the present Missal, the principles stated by the Council were correct. How can one reasonably criticize the restored structural clarity of the Novus Ordo, in which the Services of the Word and the Sacrifice are explicitly distinguished, the former divided into the rite of assembly and the rite of readings and preaching, the latter into the Sacrifice and Communion? Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 7 explains that this corresponds to Christ's four-fold presence and action in the Eucharistic liturgy: his presence in his body the Church, in his Word, in the Sacrifice, and in Communion. Although the first two forms of his presence and action are not "substantial" as are the latter two, they are, nevertheless, real, since Jesus himself said, "where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them" (Mt. 18:20) and "Whoever listens to you listens to me" (Lk 10:16).

Thus, the purpose of the Council in reforming the liturgy was absolutely sound and in full accord with the tradition of the Catholic and Roman Church. It was a return to the deepest principles of Eucharistic worship and was the work of the Holy Spirit in giving the Church a rock firm foundation for the great evangelistic opportunities opening in the Third Millennium. Yet, it is impossible to deny that it has for the time being resulted in serious abuses and seemingly in a marked decline in Eucharistic devotion.

Before we condemn the Council as impractical, let us recognize the very great difficulty which the Church faces in a culture which in its entertainment world of radio, film, television, and Internet provides a range of vivid imagery, an ersatz liturgy which conditions people in ways that make the Church's liturgy seem a great bore and tempt those in charge to try to compete by adopting modern techniques uncritically.

The Good News is that Jesus, Lord of History, is truly present and active in the Eucharist, and if we, too, actively participate in his act of worship, the Church will be renewed and victory will be ours. That active participation begins not by merely complaining or withdrawing from the liturgy of our local Church, but by participation in it with a lively faith, no matter how we may suffer from its abuses, and using, according to our gifts, such influence and talent as we have to enhance its glory.

Dominican Father Benedict Ashley teaches at the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri.