Are Our Liturgies For Everybody?

There are many lenses through which to view the reception of Vatican Council II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (SC) in our parishes in this the quarter of the twenty-first century. We can approach it through theology, sociology, pastoral care, formation (by and for the liturgy), its use of language, music and silence, environment, inclusion, attendance to name but a few. This article will take a pastoral view on whether what we do in the parish liturgy enables everyone to be full and active participants. It will address some questions that can be asked by parish priests and liturgy teams and will highlight different responses that can be initiated within the existing rites so that the celebration of the liturgy may be for everybody.

Memories

My most vivid memory of attending Mass when I was a child and a young teenager is kneeling beside my shopkeeper father as we prayed Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi… (Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world…). He knelt, bowed his head, closed his eyes and touched his closed fist to his heart. My dad was participating fully and actively in this precious moment. The reverence, the openness to forgiveness and the assurance of God’s love seen in his eyes when the prayer was over remains with me to this day.

A second abiding memory is of myself at nine years of age sitting on the organ stool in the choir loft in the Queensland country church at Chinchilla. I was pumping the pedals at breakneck speed (due to nervousness) and playing the Tantum Ergo. Sixty-six years later at the organ in our parish church in Coorparoo, Brisbane, I remember with gratitude that pious little girl who practised and practised that hymn because she wanted to participate fully in the Wednesday night novena.

I learnt that participating in and being at the service of the liturgy was a great joy.

A final childhood story is not about me but about our two boys playing ‘Mass’ in the lounge room when they were about 4 and 5. I was the coordinator of the music ministry in our parish at the time, and they knew all the hymns and sang away at Mass, in the car and through our house. One day I came in from the backyard to find them sitting at the coffee table with their lunch – sandwiches and a cup of Coke - along with one of our children’s Sunday Mass books. As the cassette played We Remember, they ‘broke’ one of the sandwiches and shared it (and left the others) and had a sip of the Coke. I sat on the floor and said, ‘Can I go to communion too?’ and they both looked at me and shook their heads. The younger one said, ‘You don’t share with us at your Mass, so you can’t share with us at ours’. Even then, they knew they were not fully and actively participating in the celebration to which we had taken them every weekend of their lives.

For Everyone

What, you may wonder, have these memories to do with the question, ‘Is our liturgy for everyone’? I think they hold the key to a pastoral approach to this question. They speak of silence, singing, sharing, sacrifice and service; they speak of reflecting, responding, remembering and reverence; of celebrating, community, communion and contrition. Collectively, at one time or another, these elements help ‘lead to that full, conscious and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy’ (SC 14).

As we consider the reality of participation and the moments that feed it, the most important question we might ask is, ‘Who is the faithful person who enters the church to participate in a liturgical celebration?’ Responding to this significant question is an important step in pastorally reflecting on whether our liturgy is for everybody. Romano Guardini (1885-1968) suggested that it is the whole person who carries out liturgical activity. Therefore it behoves us to remember that each person who comes to liturgy is different: there is the extrovert, the introvert, the thinker, the dreamer, the ‘on-time’ and the ‘always-late’, the sensate, the feeler, the free spirit, the rule follower, the neurodiverse, the elderly, the young, the churched and the unchurched, the anxious, the sad, the happy, the full believer, the questioner, to name but a few.

How then can one liturgy be for all and involve all the different personalities who come to participate? How can each person find in the liturgical action ‘the summit toward which the activity of the church is directed, and at the same time the font from which all her power flows’ (SC 10)?

Since the promulgation by Vatican II of Sacrosanctum Concilium in 1963, there has been a genuine effort to renew and adapt the liturgy to invite everyone to participate fully in the sacrifice and celebration. We began by singing Joy is Like the Rain and Kumbaya My Lord with guitars and tambourines. We added violins and flutes, pianos and organs, and prayed with times of silence and times of riotous clapping and dancing. We returned to moments of great solemnity, we sang Panis Angelicus, Now Thank We All our God and Christ be our Light. Some anxiously clung to the way Mass was celebrated long before the Council. However none of the above engaged all of the community all of the time. So, most parishes settled for a liturgically correct ritual which often neglected the world of symbols. Correct perhaps, but neutral. It is our use of symbols which develops an interior participation of mind and heart combined with the exterior action of saying and doing which together go to the heart of active participation.

Pope Francis recently challenged parishes and liturgists in Desiderio Desideravi (45) when he asked how we can once again become ‘capable of symbols’ knowing how to read them and live them. He affirmed that, whilst the sacrament is efficacious in itself (ex opere operato), this does not guarantee the full engagement of people without an adequate way for them to place themselves in relation to the language, rites and rituals of the celebration — a symbolic ‘reading’ is a living experience, not something observed from afar.

Strategies

What then are our parishes to do pastorally to address this liturgical challenge sixty-one years on from the promulgation of Sacrosanctum Concilium? Is the answer less music and singing or more? More bodily movement or more stillness? Less interaction and more silence or rather more inclusion and lay involvement? Should we establish a withdrawal space for those who want it? Should we have a Mass just for those who want silence, or a different language, or those who want to sing and dance, a special Mass for the neurodiverse, or even one just for baby boomers, Gen X, the millennials (Gen Y), or Gen Z?

I think, on the whole, the answer is, No!

There are many theological understandings to discuss and liturgical formation questions to be asked. In this article, from a pastoral perspective, I suggest we ask, ‘Who is the faithful person who enters the church to be part of the community and to participate in a liturgical celebration? How do we enable them to find their home in different moments of the liturgy and actively and fully participate in Eucharist?

The eucharistic celebration is rich in both moments of interior participation of mind and heart, and moments of exterior action of saying and doing things that invite this active participation. The existing liturgy is rich and full of possibilities to suit a myriad of wonderful people. However, there are problems encountered in various parishes. Many extraordinary and important moments are lost to efficiency, or the cult of the personal devotion that is the preference of the celebrant, liturgy team, parish worker or the chronic complainer. The sacred can be overshadowed by intrusive hyperactive altar servers, celebrants who preside poorly, readers who are not prepared and who do not invite listening, musicians who with the best of intentions sing too much or too loudly, and use music that people don’t know or can’t sing. All these occur to the detriment of reaching out to give everyone a moment in which they can actively and fully participate.

Different people will resonate with different moments in the liturgy. A sense of community is built into the processions - mainly through singing – and into the Sign of Peace, the Prayer of the Faithful and the shared spoken responses. Forgiveness and contrition are expressed in the introductory rite and the Lamb of God. Reflecting and responding are the key to encountering Jesus in the word and in the Eucharistic Prayer. Silence and personal space for reflection are built into the liturgy after the readings and homily, during the preparation of gifts, and after the community has received communion. There are moments of profound reverence and devotion.

This being said, there are faithful persons who enter the church and are challenged by the sensory overload. These people, for a variety of reasons, often cannot find their quiet, reflective place in an existing parish Mass. For some, this is because the parish has not included the space they need for silence and reflection. For others, often neurodiverse, the activity, singing, moving around, microphones and bright lights play adversely on their senses. Our Parish of Mt Carmel at Coorparoo has taken steps to address this by having a semi-regular Sunday evening celebration of the Mass using a quieter, more reflective style of prayer, softer lighting— even candlelight – and music in the style of Taizé. This celebration is designed to gently and quietly draw people into the corporate communal action of full and active participation.

Conclusion

Let us, therefore, each Sunday PURPOSEFULLY USE THE EXISTING RITES AND RITUALS to enable each person to enter into their full participatory moments in the liturgy. Let us remember that our bodies are part of the liturgical action. Let us genuflect, stand, sit, kneel, move in procession and reverently bow. Let us join in the prayers, responses and singing. Let us turn to each other with a smile to offer peace. Let us take time for active silence after the readings, during the Eucharistic Prayer and after the communion procession is finished. Let us use the variety of Eucharistic Prayers at various times. Let us explore the Directory of Masses for Children and incorporate it into appropriate celebrations. If we provide a home for everybody, community happens and Christ will be more fully present amongst us.

Participation is possible throughout the year when we follow the ordered weekly flow of the seasons; it is encouraged when a parish celebrates in such a way that people are able to share a greater quiet and reflection, with less sensory overload, or fewer or more softly sung hymns; it happens for others at a family Eucharist where the younger children in the parish play a critical role in the ministry of music and word. This purposeful use of the rites and ritual intensifies in the great seasons of Lent and Advent and culminates as we celebrate the high feasts of the Triduum, Eastertide and Christmas. At these times, we engage the community in special moments that draw us even more deeply into the spirit of the risen Christ and reverence of the Word made flesh.

Let us always remember that the community gathered – be it for the 21st Sunday of the Year or the Easter Vigil – is comprised of a faithful people who are different and who find God in different ways and at different moments. Pastors and liturgy teams, singers and readers, servers and ministers of holy communion, all need to be aware that every moment cannot be for everybody. So let us be brave, generous and adventurous, not afraid to chance offering everybody different moments that enable their full and active participation.

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This article was originally published in Liturgy News ​Vol 54(3) September 2024.  Reprinted with permission.

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