The Rite Stuff

Rite vs. right

Yet, this gentle and good man of the gospel could easily be accused of “liturgical abuses,” as defined by some of the hierarchy of the church these days. He changes texts, addresses God as Father and Mother, walks away from the altar to offer his flock the sign of peace, and inserts the prayer of the faithful in the eucharistic prayer. Yet, his people pray with him and know with deep certainty that God loves and accepts them just as they are. Some church leadership and laity would scoff at such a notion, believing that people will find God through following strict rules and traditions. They might even condemn this pastor for making God seem too easy to love us in our sinfulness.

“Abuse” is a very strong word, and its use is justly applied to things such as the failure of the hierarchy to protect God’s children from clergy sex offenders. But is the naming of liturgical foibles justly called “abuse”? Who is being abused? God? The people of God? The clergy? Tradition? The rules? Whose rules? Is it possible that there is a rite way among many right ways?

When we become obsessed with golden chalices, who kneels and who stands, who receives communion first or last, whether to bow or genuflect, whether to process with a cross or a crucifix, who can assist with the fraction rite, and whether flagons or many chalices look worse on the altar — we have really begun to lose our way. What has happened to common pastoral sense?

If we stack up the liturgical directives against the teachings of the gospel and find any discrepancy, it may be in our neglect of the works of justice. Nowhere in the gospel teaching does Jesus tell us that we will be asked how we followed the law, liturgical or otherwise. We know Jesus himself saw the shortcomings of observing the Law while neglecting justice, and he reserved his harshest criticism for those teachers.

The reforms of the liturgy brought by the Second Vatican Council were meant to have flexibility. Just because some folks still need to learn some good sense of ritual does not mean they are promoting liturgical abuses.

One of the most neglected areas of liturgy is the proliferation of poor preaching. Every weekend we experience that ordination does not necessarily confer the charism of preaching. It is more than unfortunate that the hierarchy refuses to recognize the preaching gifts of some of the laity, who can bring a special gift to the opening of God’s word for today. We want to hear the gospel applied to our lives here and now. By “lay preaching” I don’t mean witness talks we hear from some parishioners. Lay preachers can be professionally trained, and some are very gifted. Since canon law allows for lay preaching when necessity warrants it — as in the example of working with children — why do the bishops continue to insist that we must endure so much mediocre preaching from the ordained?

How God is named must continue to grow, since God, as holy mystery, cannot be fully known. To insist that only masculine words can be used to describe God is to make an idol out of masculinity, and the absence of the feminine connotes it as second-rate. Genesis tells us that both male and female have been made in the image of God. Our prayers need to reflect that reality.

There is no one “right” way for the rites to be celebrated. We are many different peoples and cultures. But we share a core value: When love is present in the gathered community, when love from the word is proclaimed and preached, when love is given in the ancient blessing of bread and wine shared together, then the real presence of Christ is evident. It is time to affirm once again that love, not law, must always take precedence. ML

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