By James Baresel
In the twentieth chapter of Loss and Gain, Saint John Henry Newman gives an extended description of how Catholics attended Mass: “Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;—not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest.”
Precisely
one hundred years after publication of Newman’s novel, Monsignor Ronald Knox’s The
Mass in Slow Motion explained that “if you find it difficult or if you find
it dull trying to follow the Mass, you are much better employed in simply
kneeling there and saying your prayers, with a book or without a book, while
Mass is going on” and that “[t]he Church doesn't oblige you to follow [the texts
of Mass]; she only obliges you…to be there.”
After
passage of another thirty-nine years, Father Bryan Houghton—one of the first
great traditionalist priests—captured classic Catholic piety in the novel Judith’s
Marriage. Attending Mass for the first time, the eponymous main character
is struck by the fact that “it had been nothing like her preconceived notion as
to what a religious ceremony ought to be” since it “was not in any sense a
community service; everybody seemed to be doing exactly as he liked.” The
priest was “fiddling about with his tools in complete silence.” A father of a
family was focused on pictures in the devotional book Garden of the Soul.
His wife was saying the rosary. “Nobody was paying the slightest attention to
the priest, just as the priest was not paying the slightest attention to the
congregation.” Judith realized that what each person was doing in his own way
was adoring God.
Those
writings do nothing less than reflect the official doctrine of the Church as
contained in Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Mediator Dei, which teaches that
“So varied and diverse are men's talents and characters that it is impossible
for all to be moved and attracted to the same extent by community prayers,
hymns and liturgical services” and that Catholics “can adopt some other method
which proves easier...they can lovingly meditate on the mysteries of Jesus
Christ or perform other exercises of piety or recite prayers which, though they
differ from the sacred rites, are still essentially in harmony with them.”
Given
the frequency with which individualism has been taken to regrettable extremes
in the United States—and the consequent tendencies of those from other
countries to look suspiciously on an American’s advocacy of something individualistic—it
seemed best to begin with the endorsement of individualistic piety by three eminent
English clergymen and a magisterial document. Further evidence of the
traditional prevalence of individualistic piety can be seen in the fact that
its widespread presence in continental European countries was lamented by such
early advocates of collectivist piety as Dom Lambert Beauduin, Dom Pius Parsch,
Father Romano Guardini and Father Louis Bouyer.
For the simple reason that each
person is an individual—each with their own individual talents and characters
that Pius XII noted—it would seem simple common sense to accept that all will
introduce at least some individualistic nuance into how they pray. It would
seem just as obvious that Catholics would realize and develop an increasing
variety of ways to pray at Mass over the course of millennia. No great
intelligence should be needed to realize that the most important thing is for
people to spiritually unite themselves as closely as possible to God and to the
sacrifice being offered.
Advocates of collectivist piety
reverse tradition, prioritizing people self-consciously praying as part of a
group over praying as well as possible. But rather than admit it, they claim
all will pray best at Mass if they do so as part of a self-conscious
collective. Rather than accept that they themselves pray better collectively
because of their individual character, talents and temperaments, they put
forward their own preferences as innate to human nature. Evidence that some
pray better individualistically will be dismissed with exemplary circular
logic: an insistence that such people are “not open enough” to praying
collectively.
Were such lunacy confined to
ultra-modernistic liturgists like Andrea Grillo, it might not be worth worrying
about. Its promotion by those who prefer the “conservative new Mass” or
advocate a reform of the reform might be of only limited concern, despite
shared concerns enabling them to influence those devoted to the old. Increasing
acceptance of it within more traditionalist circles is another matter.
How much the use of collectivistic
arguments is based in real conviction, how much it is a matter of unthinking
conformity to the collectivistic spirit of the times, and how much it is rooted
in attempts to find arguments that might have weight with open-minded critics
of the Tridentine Mass, is not clear. But something is off when a generally
excellent book makes an excellent case both for the silent Low Mass (with only
altar servers making responses) and for Catholics individualistically choosing
their method of prayer—then proceeds to add as further “justification” that
this might create a collective spirit more effectively than people focusing on
the missals which allow them to respond in unison during a dialogue Mass.
Historically, Catholics had little
interest in deliberately fostering a collective spirit because they understood
that the only essential “social” aspect of the Mass was a person’s membership
in a social institution—the Church. Contemporary preoccupation with creating a
collective spirit is not the return to Patristic or Medieval piety that its
advocates claim. It is a result of the influence of modern Continental
philosophy—which elevates emotion above intellect and is therefore preoccupied
with an unnecessary “feeling of community.”
