Adore till the Gospel.
Give thanks till the bell.
Repent till communion;
Then all your wants tell.

Sister did a pretty good job. My friend is now in his sixties and can recite this little ditty as easily as the Hail Mary or the Pledge of Allegiance. The apparent purpose of the lesson was the four kinds of prayer: adoration, thanksgiving, repentance and intercession. What is striking, however, is that what the children were taught to pray had little to do with the actual content of the Mass. For many folks, the pre-Vatican II Mass was a kind of holy background for private prayer, a difference between praying at Mass and praying the Mass. But they were praying.

Fifteen years ago I taught a course in liturgy at Saint Louis University. My students included several women religious, one from Korea; a middle-aged African-American woman, very much a Baptist who was taking the class because it fit into her schedule and she was curious about “what you Catholics believe”; a couple of underpaid, but enthusiastic lay music directors; and a half dozen seminarians for whom the class was required that year. Quite a mix.

I assigned a weekly two-page essay and one topic was, “What do you miss from before Vatican II?” Of course, only the Baptist and the Korean could remember anything from before 1963, but all of them had ideas of what they missed. Words used over and over were mystery, awe, beauty, reverence.Some mentioned incense and chant. A few longed for the clarity of Catholic identity.

One of the music directors (and I hope he is still in the business) gave his essay the brilliant title: “What We Miss Shouldn’t Be Missing.” I thought he summed it up pretty well.

The work of Vatican II was to restore the liturgy to its original intent: a profound celebration by all the people of the abiding presence of God in this world. People would now hear the Scriptures proclaimed in their own languages, worship with music from their own cultures, celebrate the holy sacrifice as holy meal in which they participated by holy communion. We weren’t supposed to lose reverence or beauty or awe. And many communities haven’t. (And many communities never experienced them even before Vatican II.)

My students sensed, and many Catholics young and old still complain, that while we’ve gained a knowledge of the personal and intimate Jesus, we risk losing the experience of the transcendent Almighty. While we gained the act of common worship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, some have lost the haven of quiet and personal prayer that the Mass used to provide. And yet those who believe in “both/and” — and I am firmly one of them — find it difficult to do so much in just an hour on Sunday mornings.

Worship forms and reflects our idea of God and forms and reflects our answer to Jesus’ timeless question, “Who do you say that I am?” From the beginning the pendulum has swung wide on that question. Is Jesus human or is Jesus divine?

Consider the conflict between the two great christological schools of Alexandria and Antioch, a conflict that led to the Council of Nicea in 325. If they could be transported to our time, the Alexandrian school would be drawn to the neo-Gothic cathedral in which the architecture speaks of the transcendent. Their worship would be a contemplation of beauty, of purity. Their music, the clear voices of a boys’ choir or the organ preludes of Bach. The vestments are rich. The gestures broad. The sermon, a well-crafted theological treatise. They celebrate a Jesus who became flesh that we might become like God.

The folks from Antioch would prefer the Sunday morning equivalent to the coffee-table Mass. Children might be heard and seen. The music is the rough sound of untrained voices raised in common hymn, singing with full-throated enthusiasm; the homily both inspiring to those in pain and an admonition to live justly in an unjust world. They celebrate a Jesus who came to reveal the goodness of being fully human, of the holiness of being a beloved creature.

We need both. We need the Jesus who walked among us as our Emanuel, our God-with-us. And we need the Jesus who is transfigured on the mountain and ascended to glory. And we need both festive celebration and profound quiet, beauty and homeliness.

The good news is that we don’t have to choose. The bad news is that we too often force the choice.

In the history of our worship, when Jesus seemed remote, folks turned to Holy Mary and the saints. When the Mass was less the prayer of the people and more the purview of the clergy, the people turned to devotions in which the language was their own and they could sing their favorite hymns. Now people are seeking out holy hours, times of quiet contemplation before the Blessed Sacrament.

One Sunday Mass each week cannot carry the full weight of our need for prayer. While the Mass is the cornerstone of our worship lives and the most sublime expression of our faith, we need other moments of prayer, both private and communal. The church provides other liturgical expressions: Morning and Evening Prayer and the communal celebrations of the sacraments of anointing and reconciliation. We are also encouraged to participate in other kinds of common prayer: family prayer around the table, Scripture study; prayer groups and even the more elaborate youth rallies, missions and sacred concerts.

Even so, the hour on Sunday is often all that people will give or can give. And it might be best if we seek a “both/and experience” at every Sunday Mass. Whether the music is accompanied by guitars or organ, led by full choir or single cantor, attracts primarily teenagers or gray-haired grandparents — everyone needs to experience the vertical and the horizontal in worship. Each of us needs to know the divine and the human Jesus.

It reminds me of words I once found ascribed to G.K. Chesterton: “A heretic is not one who tells a lie and calls it the truth. A heretic is one who tells a partial truth and calls it the whole truth.” It would be a great service to our communities if we could seek to tell as much of the whole truth about Jesus every Sunday, every time we gather to pray. That’s what Vatican II was about — restoring some of the lost truth. It was not about creating liturgy camps who are known by the instruments they play or the songs they sing or how much incense they use.

If we ministers answer the question, “Who do you say that I am?” each time we prepare liturgy, and each time we worship, we won’t lead our people astray. And we won’t make them choose.

ML
Paige Byrne Shortal is the pastoral associate at St. Francis Borgia Church in Washington, Mo. Contact her at pbs@fidnet.com.