How (Not) to Celebrate “Mass”: Francis in Wonder-Land

Caution: Bergoglio gives Liturgical Advice…

How (Not) to Celebrate “Mass”:
Francis in “Wonder”-Land

And now, another post from our “You can’t make this stuff up” department:

On February 19, 2015, “Pope” Francis hosted a two-hour meeting with the clergy of Rome, during which he advised them, among other things, on how to properly celebrate “Mass” (i.e. the 1969 Modernist worship service known as the Novus Ordo Missae of Paul VI). As you can probably imagine, he tried to steer a middle course — so as to look “moderate” — between “rigid” and “sloppy”:

The Pope combined two subjects in his introduction: homiletics (“Homilies are a challenge for all priests”) and the ars celebrandi, that is the art of celebrating, which aims to “restore the fascinating beauty” and “the awe one feels when one encounters God”. “An attractive feeling that leads you to contemplate”. In this sense, “to celebrate is to enter into the mystery and to let other enter into it: it’s as simple as that”. The Pope then compared prayer to celebration: “When we meet the Lord in prayer, we feel this awe. When we pray formally or with formalisms, we do not.” Similarly, the ars celebrandi involves “praying before God with the community, but as you would normally pray.” On the contrary, “when priests celebrate in a sophisticated, artificial way and abuse gestures, it is not easy to inspire awe.” So “if I am too rigid, I don’t let others enter the mystery” and “if I am a showman, the protagonist in the celebration, I don’t let others enter into the mystery.”…

(“Pope meets Rome’s priests: Homilies are not for show”, Vatican Insider, Feb. 20, 2015)

That’s it: If you celebrate in a manner that is “sophisticated” and has rigid “gestures”, then you cannot really “inspire awe”. Really now? Let’s take a look. The image below shows the traditional Catholic Mass of the ages: plenty of rigid and sophisticated rubrics.

Nothing there to inspire awe, huh?

But it gets better. Catholic World News reported on Francis’ meeting with Roman clergy as follows:

Pope Francis concentrated on the need for reverence in the sacred liturgy, as he met on February 19 with priests of the Rome diocese.

After being introduced by Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the vicar for the Rome diocese, the Pope spoke to the priests about the need for reverence. He then answered questions from the clerics in attendance.

“I was very impressed first of all by a reference he made to the need to recover the sense of wonder in the liturgy,” one Roman priest told Vatican Radio after the meeting. “I was struck by the idea that he emphasized: how the priest who celebrates the Liturgy in an automated way, attentive only to the rules, is not capable of wonder – but neither is the priest who celebrates in a sloppy manner.”…

(“Pope emphasizes need for reverence in liturgy, at meeting with priests of Rome”, Catholic Culture, Feb. 20, 2015)

Ah yes, the usual crocodile tears about irreverent liturgies! John Paul II cried them, Benedict XVI cried them, and now Francis cries them too. He wants more “awe” in the liturgy, he wants a sense of “wonder” to be recovered. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

It’s time for a little reality check: Let’s look at how “Cardinal” Bergoglio liked to celebrate “Mass” in Buenos Aires. The following video clips are excerpts from the annual diocesan “Children’s Masses” in 2010, 2011, and 2012, just before he was elected the successor to Benedict XVI:

Mr. Bergoglio definitely didn’t celebrate in a “sophisticated” manner here, nor did he use “artificial” or “rigid” gestures. But — especially compared to the traditional Catholic Mass — did his celebration inspire “awe”? Did it allow those present to enter into the mystery of Calvary? Which of the two types of liturgical celebration reduces the celebrant to a “showman”? Sorry, but in light of the facts, Francis’ call for more reverence in the liturgy is a tad unconvincing.

Speaking of reverence, here is a video of how “Cardinal” Bergoglio distributed “Holy Communion” in Buenos Aires at an outdoor liturgy:

(distribution of “Communion” begins at 8:00 min mark)

Of course, we all remember the recent “Communion” chaos at Francis’ “Mega Mass” in Manila, Philippines, in January.

Another item from Francis’ message to his Roman presbyters we would like to draw attention to is something he said concerning sermons, or homilies:

One priest asked the Pope why he once described the homily as an “act of justice”, to which Francis replied quoting St. Paul. He explained that the homily justifies us, or rather makes us just, righteous people because it is the moment when the grace of God enters us, His Word enters us. Francis highlighted that during the celebration, it is the Lord celebrating within us, he is “the people’s altar”.

(“Pope meets Rome’s priests: Homilies are not for show”, Vatican Insider, Feb. 20, 2015)

This is quite interesting — the sermon has apparently now become a sacrament for Francis, one that gives sanctifying grace, ex opere operato. That must be the eighth sacrament, then (or perhaps the ninth, since Vatican II already spoke of the Church as a sacrament), which, unfortunately for the Argentine impostor, is an impossibility in the Catholic Church: “If any one saith, that the sacraments of the New Law were not all instituted by Jesus Christ, our Lord; or, that they are more, or less, than seven… let him be anathema” (Council of Trent, Session 7, Canon I). We’ll leave the asinine remarks about “the people’s altar” uncommented.

By the way, there is a reason why the Catholic Church has rigid rules when it comes to the Sacred Liturgy: It is precisely so that each priest’s own person, own personality, may vanish behind the person of Christ, whom he represents at Holy Mass and in other liturgical functions: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). The priest’s own personality is to lose itself completely in the rubrics so as not to draw anyone’s attention to him but only to our Lord Jesus Christ in whose person he is acting. Holy Mother Church, with her beautiful and venerable tradition of liturgical rubrics, knows exactly how best to represent Christ as the celebrant. This common-sense concept has been entirely destroyed, of course, in the “New Mass” of Paul VI, a rite so banal and insipid that it practically beckons each celebrant to become an entertainer and “fill out” the liturgy — which is exactly what has happened.

Notice also how Francis keeps emphasizing the subjective feeling and experience of each individual, as though these things were the focal points of the liturgy. In truth, of course, the Sacred Liturgy is first and foremost the solemn act of worship of the Most Holy Trinity. How each and every person in attendance “feels” about it really does not enter into the picture at all.

In lieu of Francis’ Modernistic drivel about liturgical “experience” and quasi-sacramental sermons, we recommend Pope Pius XII’s beautiful encyclical on the Sacred Liturgy, Mediator Dei, in which the Pope speaks of the “majestic ceremonies of the sacrifice of the altar” (n. 5), a phrase one could not convincingly apply to Bergoglio’s children’s mess in the videos above. In fact, in his encyclical letter on the Sacred Liturgy, Pius XII condemns precisely so many ideas that were later imposed in the “New Mass” of Paul VI in 1969, such as reducing the altar to a table, suppressing private devotions on the part of those attending, eliminating black vestments, and using crosses that do not show a crucified, but rather a resurrected Christ:

• Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei (1947) on the Sacred Liturgy

By the way, during his meeting with his Roman clergy, Francis also dished out a few insults against traditionalists, which the indult Rorate Caeli blog points out here.

As we can easily see, Francis giving advice on how to offer Mass is a lot like Michael Moore giving advice on how to lose weight — it’s just not convincing.

Image sources: youtube.com (screenshot) / stmichaels.org
Licenses: fair use / fair use