While on Sabbatical several years ago, I attended Sunday Mass in various churches around central and Western Europe. Recently, while looking over the notes I took, I noticed something I didn't catch at the time: A church in Munich stressed pro-life, while one in Berlin stressed social justice, a small chapel in Rome put its energy into having a sense of welcome and good liturgy, a strong faith formation ethos permeated the Krakow Cathedral, and in a Prague church I found a huge emphasis on the Blessed Virgin Mary during Sunday Mass. The energy and focus in each of these places was tangible. I visited others that didn't stress anything in particular and came away with a kind of bland neutral feeling.
I guess many people have had this kind of experience. In San Francisco, some churches offer meaningful liturgy and preaching, others offer a strong musical experience, while others are big into social justice, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and devotion to the Blessed Mother etc. Have you seen parishes that have a more holistic ethos to them -putting more or less equal energy into joyful music, good preaching, prayerful liturgy, social justice, community building, outreach, good school, and children's and adult faith formation etc.? As a retired pastor, I know how difficult it is to do all this in one parish!
My European experience of Sunday Eucharist was that the celebration of the Eucharist was weak in far too many churches, especially where there was emphasis on social justice, outreach, devotions etc.. The Second Vatican Council declared that the celebration of the Eucharist is 'source and summit of the whole Christian life.' Surely that means that the Eucharist contains within it the seeds of social justice and its various contemporary issues, like immigration, globalization, poverty, injustice, war, pro-life, health care etc.. Surely it means, also, that the Eucharist contains within it a vision that is subversive to the world's unjust social structures. In other words, preaching, justice, non-violence, music, outreach, devotions, community building, catholic education, faith formation etc. are parts of a whole and ought to be rooted in the good celebration of the Eucharist. As the oak tree grows out of the acorn, so should these church activities grow out of the celebration of the Sunday Eucharist and not become something separate and more or less independent.
I would welcome your comments, ideas, objections and rebuttals.
PASTOR EMERITUS
Certainly good points. Frequently, the Eucharist recedes into the background and the particular agenda of the homilist becomes the focus of the service. Of course, it is always framed in terms of "social justice", but clearly that is a matter of perspective and viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteThe essence of the Eucharist is either forgotten or, at a minimum, not emphasized. This certainly came home with the recent Pew Survey. It reflected that only 41% of "attending" Catholics know that the Church teaches that the consecration is not simply symbolic. (The survey did not ask whether they believed in the transubstantiation -- just whether they knew that it was the Church teaching.)
So, it is not surprising that the same survey showed that one third of those who were raised as Catholics have left the Church.
If Catholics, who attend Mass, do not understand the essence of the Eucharist, and the focus of their Mass is an ill-prepared homily or a polemic, it is no wonder.
Clearly, there is work to be done. (Clearly, changing the language of the liturgy to more closely reflect the Latin is not the answer.)
Aren't you glad you retired?
Cheers
Jim