By Veronica A. Arntz
The parable of the ten virgins
awaiting the bridegroom reveals a significant key for understanding our
relationship with Christ: We are meant to be watchful, waiting for the hour of His
coming with anticipation. Five virgins were wise, and five were foolish. Five
had a sufficient amount of oil to meet the delayed bridegroom, while five did
not. Some of us await the second coming of Christ with an awakened spirit, while
others live our lives as if He does not exist. If we consider this parable
within the context of sacred liturgy, we could say the following: The wise
virgins are the ones who listen for the voice of the Lord within the texts;
they are the ones who are prepared to meet the Bridegroom by listening to His
words. In a particular way, the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite can foster
what Dietrich von Hildebrand calls the “spirit of awakenedness,” which he
considers to be the spirit necessary to “conform to the sursum corda.”
This parable about the wise and
foolish virgins appropriately sets the tone for discussing the spirit of
waiting in the Extraordinary Form, because this form of the Roman Rite
possesses a manifestly nuptial character. The words of the rite reveal both the
love of the Bridegroom for us, but also, the love that we ought to give Him
through praise and thanksgiving. While much has been said to men about the Extraordinary
Form being the natural place to cultivate a priestly or religious vocation, it
seems that women can relate very well to this nuptial character of the Mass. In
a special way, women can discover the means and the grace for anticipating the
Bridegroom, like the five wise virgins, through the sacred texts and form of
the usus antiquior.
Before looking at particulars, it
would be helpful to recall that salvation history is, primarily and
fundamentally, a love story. In fact, it is the
love story, by which all other stories of romance derive their meaning.
From the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, when God created man and woman
in his own image, even when they fell from Him and rejected His love, He has
been wooing his people with love, calling them to return to Him when they have
fallen into sin. God’s love for mankind is patient and merciful; He waits for
us to overcome our foolishness and return to Him (Exodus 34:6-7, RSV). God
speaks to us in the language of love, through the eros of the Song of Songs: “Behold, you are beautiful, my love,
behold, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil” (Song of Songs
4:1).
Perhaps the most astounding
example of this reality of God’s love is expressed in Hosea, when God asks
Hosea to marry a prostitute, in order that her unfaithfulness might embody the
relationship of Israel to God. Even then, God anticipates the future when His
bride will return to Him: “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her
into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her…And in that day, says the Lord,
you will call me, ‘My husband,’ and no longer will you call me, ‘My Baal’”
(Hosea 2:14, 16). The faithfulness of God stands in stark contrast to our own
infidelity, yet He is always willing to call us back to Himself, that we might
delight with Him in the eternal paradise.
The traditional Roman Rite is a
living icon of the nuptial relationship between Christ and His Church. We can
see this in several ways. For example, let us first look at the festive nature
of the Old Mass, evident in the florid pomp and circumstance with which it
celebrates the Holy Mysteries.
Josef Pieper writes that the
festival naturally arises out of joy. He explains that the reason for the joy
is always the same: “… possessing or receiving what one loves, whether actually
in the present, hoped for in the future, or remembered in the past.” He
continues: “Joy is the response of a love receiving what he loves.” This is why
weddings are great times of festivity: The joy and love of the new husband and
wife overflows into the whole community. In a similar way, the liturgy is a
time of festivity, and in fact, as Pieper explains, the most festive festival,
because in it we receive the Beloved
in joy, a joy so much the greater, as our Spouse’s condescension is unmerited.
When we receive the God who is love when celebrating the liturgy, He becomes
ours, and our hearts overflow in the joy of communal festival.
Indeed, the very first prayers of
the priest and server attest to the supreme joy of the sacred liturgy: “Introibo ad altare Dei. Ad Deum qui
laetificat iuventutem meam”—“I will go in unto the altar of God. To God who
giveth joy to my youth.” In the sacred liturgy, we humbly approach the throne
of God, the house of our Beloved, who brings us the joy of our salvation. Like
a maiden approaching her groom with great joy and youthful steps, we eagerly
come to the altar of God, to receive the precious gift of the Eucharist, which
is the true bread of love that will sustain us unto eternal life. Indeed, this
spirit of joy within the sacred liturgy is not like the spirit of acedia, or spiritual sloth, of the five
foolish virgins; rather, one who rejoices in the sacred liturgy is fully awake
to the voice of the Lord, because she loves to hear Him, and she delights in His
every word. She is like the faithful individual of Psalm 1, who delights in the
law of the Lord day and night (Psalm 1:2). In the sacred liturgy, we approach
the nuptial banquet between God and His baptized faithful, as we anticipate
with joy the eternal wedding feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6-7).
In addition to festivity, the
traditional liturgy expresses itself with a feminine virtue of submissive
attention. Through the sacred liturgy, a woman can learn the art of
submissiveness and self-gift to Christ, her one true Bridegroom, and more, she
can teach this to others. Putting aside all modern stereotypes concerning
submissiveness, the letter to the Ephesians explains the true relationship
between Christ and His Church in nuptial language: “Wives, be subject to your
husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is
the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior” (Ephesians 5:23).
This attitude of submissiveness goes beyond simply wearing a chapel veil at
Mass, while that is certainly a beautiful, laudable, and encouraged tradition. Rather,
like the five wise virgins, the woman who is submissive to the liturgy is ready
to follow her Lord’s call; she is ready to do His will whenever he should call
upon her. Just as she is spiritually awake to His voice, she is ready to give
herself completely to Him. In the offering of the bread and wine, the priest
prays:
Suscipe, sancte Pater, omnipotens aterne Deus, hanc immaculatam
hostiam, quam ego indignus famulus tuus offero tibi Deo neo vivo et vero, pro
innumerabilibus peccatis, offensionibus, et neglegentiis meis, et pro omnibus
circumstantibus, sed et pro omnibus fidelibus christianis vivis atque
defunctis: ut mihi et illis proficiat ad salutem in vitam aeternam. Amen.
Receive, O holy
Father, almighty, eternal God, this spotless host, which I, thine unworthy
servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for my own countless sins,
offenses, and negligences, and for all here present; as also for all the
faithful Christians, living or dead; that it may avail for my own and for their
salvation unto life eternal. Amen.
These prayers of the ancient
Roman Rite breathe the spirit of a sober humility that is conscious of our true
metaphysical situation before God. We offer ourselves to God, that He might do
with us as He wills, for our own salvation. He is the living and true God, the
one who wrought our salvation by His death on the Cross, and He is thus the
head of the Church; the Church, as His Bride, ought to give everything entirely
back to Him. The one who loves is always ready and willing to do whatever the
beloved desires, and we should be ready to do the same for our supreme Beloved,
who is the Lord of our lives. Indeed, all the prayers of the offertory and
leading into the consecration manifest this attitude of submissiveness, for we
are giving our humble gifts (gifts that were given to us by God in the first
place) and asking for His blessing in return.
Indeed, we should not be at all
surprised that there is such a lack of understanding of the sacrament of
marriage within our culture and even within our own Church, given that the
sacred liturgy is often tossed aside and celebrated without reverence or care.
While much more could be said on this specific connection of the sacrament of
marriage and the sacred liturgy, let us be content to say the following: If the
liturgy is considered the sacrament that celebrates the nuptials between God
and His people, then it follows that man and woman can learn how to model their
own married life from that liturgy.
As I have stated, a woman can
learn the art of submissiveness to her Lord through the liturgy, which in turn
can teach her how to be submissive in the appropriate way to her husband. Conversely,
a woman’s faithful example can teach a man the virtues of humility, a self-gift
he needs to live the spiritual life. Moreover, particularly in the
Extraordinary Form, the role of the priest can teach a woman the nature of true
manhood. The priest gives a model for what all men should be: Totally dedicated
to God, disciplined, self-giving, and humble. If we consider what happens so
often in the Novus Ordo, that the
priest often feels compelled to make up the words of the Mass or ignore the
deeper realities of the Church’s teachings on purgatory, hell, and sin, then we
can begin to understand why so many men do not attend Mass anymore, and why
women do not really know what to look for in a future husband. As such, the
Extraordinary Form of the Mass is a school, in many ways, for understanding how
we might pursue the sacrament of marriage.
Third and finally, the nuptial
character of the usus antiquior is
manifest through the “lingering in love” of the rich, sacred texts. Those who
are in love desire to be together and do not want to leave each other’s
company. In a similar way, when we attend the sacred liturgy, we should be
ready and willing to lavish everything upon God and spend as much time with Him
as possible. We see this in a particular way through the structure of the
Extraordinary Form: The Asperges is
sung and prayed before the priest even approaches the altar, and we dwell over
the Kyrie and Gloria (depending on the season) through sacred chant.
Some of prayers specifically
speak to this lingering in love: “Accendat
in nobis Dominus ignem sui amoris, et flammam aeternae caritatis.”—“May the
Lord enkindle within us the fire of his love, and the flame of everlasting
charity.” This prayer reminds of the quote from St. John Chrysostom, which
Pieper quotes, “Ubi caritas gaudet, ibi
est festivitas.”—“Where love rejoices, there is festivity.” We especially
ask the Lord that He may enkindle His love within us, like a roaring fire that
never ceases, so that we might always dwell in the liturgical spirit of His
love, which is fostered by our attentive listening to His voice. Again, we pray,
“Domine, dilexi decorem domus tuae, et
locum habitations gloriae tuae”—“O Lord, I have loved the beauty of thy
house, and the place where thy glory dwelleth.” We long to remain in the
Father’s house; we delight at its beauty, we marvel at his wondrous works, and
we rejoice in His great love for us.
This spirit of lingering, and of
anticipating our Lord’s great love, cannot exist when the liturgy is rushed
through quickly – why would we want to hurry through the prayers in less than
an hour, when all our heart desires is to delight in His presence? Finally, the
older form of the Mass does not even end with the final blessing. The love we
have for our Lord is so great that it spills out into the Last Gospel, the
recitation of John’s Prologue. And what a great hymn of love is this Prologue:
We recognize that the Word became flesh for us, and “dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri: his, qui credunt in nomine ejus”—“and
he gave them power to become sons of God: to them that believe in his name.” Through
Christ, we become His children, and the prayers of the sacred liturgy help us
to delight and linger in that reality, which we carry within ourselves
throughout the rest of the week.
In the final analysis, the traditional
Latin Mass is a school for learning
to become the Bride of Christ, for learning how to love Him with all our mind
and our strength. Through the sacred liturgy, we can learn to be like the five
wise virgins, who anticipated the coming of the Lord by having a sufficient
amount of oil for their lamps.
Let us carefully attend to the
state of our hearts, that our hearts may always be overflowing with love for
Christ and for our neighbors; let us foster this love by approaching the
liturgy with care and attentiveness. Let us see in the great prayers of the Church’s
tradition the appropriate means for preparing our hearts to meet the Lord on
the last day, when the faithful shall all be made one in Him in the eternal
nuptial banquet. As we have shown, the prayers of the Extraordinary Form of the
Mass open our hearts in a particular way to the nuptial character of the
liturgy; let us then be attentive and watchful, waiting for the coming of the
Bridegroom with great joy and rejoicing, for it is in Him alone that we have
our hope.
