In the April 9 issue of The Atlantic, Francis X. Rocca described the path many younger Catholics are taking to faith: a journey through tradition toward a transcendent faith in what lies beyond ordinary existence — angels, saints, demons, and the real, unbloody sacrifice of Jesus in the Eucharist:
“Perhaps counterintuitively, this return to tradition seems to be led by young Catholics, who make up a disproportionate share of Latin Mass devotees. According to a recent survey … 44 percent of Catholics who attended the old rite at least once a month were under the age of 45, compared with only 20 percent of other members of those parishes.”
I know he is right. As one of the youngest bishops in the U.S., I have trod that same path. Three years ago, on May 31 — a few months before my 50th birthday — I was consecrated bishop of Columbus, Ohio, one of the fastest-growing dioceses in the country, marked by rapidly increasing ethnic diversity.
For my parents — immigrants from India whose ancestral home was in Goa (hence our Portuguese last name) — the experience of Catholic parish life in Ohio was a culture shock: guitars, drums, liturgical dancing, and more. The people were wonderful and the community life was real, but sometimes my father still yearned for a more traditional experience. On those days, he would take us to St. Joseph’s in Toledo, where the Latin Mass was offered.
The priest there was elderly after Vatican II and didn’t make too many changes. The Communion rail was continuously used, and a low altar was never installed in that church.
Our family made an annual pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady of Consolation — a magnificent basilica in the countryside adorned with murals and home to a fantastic organ. After Mass, we’d go over to the shrine cafeteria for lunch, which was memorable as the only time we got dessert since my mother liked cheesecake. Then came a Rosary procession through the streets, singing with Our Lady of Consolation.
Afterward, we would head back to the basilica for exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. We heard the O Salutaris, spent time in Adoration, and concluded with the Tantum Ergo and Benediction. Outside of that pilgrimage, we never heard these classic Catholic hymns — but they became deeply familiar. So much was planted in what I might call my Catholic imagination through those yearly visits to the Basilica of Our Lady of Consolation that it never left me.
As I moved through life — from college to medical school — I began to make more sense of the Mass. For me, Gregorian chant at the Mass was much more consonant with what the Mass truly is: the beautiful, unbloody sacrifice of Our Lord. I was young, but I remember thinking I wanted the old-time religion, just like my father did.
A priest at the Mass smiled a lot, and I began to think that I could be a priest and be happy. So I chose to answer God’s call to the priesthood. I was educated in Rome, served as a seminary professor and later as a secretary to the papal nuncio in Washington, D.C., before returning to Ohio as a pastor. I was somewhat shocked to discover the absence of much of what had drawn me closer to God.
Many people did not genuflect before Our Lord — because they had rarely seen anyone genuflect. Guitars and liturgical dancing were still common. Almost none of the more than 1,000 schoolchildren in my parish had even heard or knew how to sing the hymn Immaculate Mary. And the priest I replaced had been accused — and eventually pleaded guilty — of sexually abusing at least seven minors. I knew I had to help restore the faith and trust of the community — which required a lot of hard work, listening — and that sense of liturgical reverence which both my father and I needed.
When Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka invited me to the Fons et Culmen Liturgy Summit (LiturgySummit.org), I accepted enthusiastically. I’ve been pondering how, in both the Old and New Testaments, the Lord gave us commands for how he wanted us to worship.
In the Old Testament, for example, Moses is given very specific liturgical laws — even down to the anointing oil used to consecrate Aaron and his sons. And so there are things set aside for the worship of God.
Jesus likewise issues clear directions when he institutes the Eucharist at the Last Supper. What does it mean that God commands this of us? How do we respond in obedience to God? And how can our worship be centered on God — how can it be Christocentric?
We often speak of liturgy as work we do on behalf of others — but it’s really the work of Christ on behalf of others, and we unite ourselves to this saving work of Christ. So how does that happen? And how are we fulfilling the command of God in doing this?
It’s curious to me how the hymn came to dominate what the faithful sing — or don’t sing, in many parishes — at Mass. When most of the Communion and entrance antiphons are drawn from the Psalms or other parts of Scripture, why are we replacing them with manmade creations?
The key is to look again at the idea of sacrifice. God commands certain things of us — by being obedient to God, we can have sacrificial worship directed to the word of God and be more Christocentric in our outlook.
Pope Francis called for better liturgical formation — which he specifically said is not just for priests, but for everyone. He also emphasized the need for silence, to experience the mystery — to receive the word or to meditate or to contemplate. Often, we don’t have music that fosters contemplation in our liturgical spaces. Are we reading the Vatican II instructions Sacrosanctum Concilium through this Christological lens? And do our liturgical practices reflect this?
There is more continuity between the thought of Pope Francis and Pope Benedict than may be immediately apparent, despite the restrictions in Traditionis Custodes. It was Pope Benedict XVI who, in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, wrote that being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea — it is the result of an encounter with a person who opens up new horizons and gives our lives a decisive direction.
At Mass, we should be meeting and encountering the person of Jesus Christ — and that should be life-changing. In Sacramentum Caritatis, Pope Benedict likened the offering of the Mass to a nuclear fission experiment, an explosion of God’s love into the human reality.
So why don’t more of the faithful experience the Mass that way?
One answer is that many of our liturgies are — on the human level — uninspiring, hurried, pedestrian. I watched an interview with a British woman who had gone to an Orthodox liturgy. “I didn’t understand the language,” she said, “but I didn’t know whether I was in heaven or on earth. It was so beautiful.”
And I wonder how many Catholics could say they’ve had that kind of experience at Mass?
Reverence is not confined to one form of the liturgy. When I have said Mass for St. Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, the simple hymns sung by the sisters move me and bring me closer to God because they sing so clearly from the heart their love of the Lord. In Columbus, we have Eritrean Catholics, Nigerian Catholics, Ghanaian Catholics, and Cameroonian Catholics — both Anglophone and Francophone. The Nigerians were largely evangelized by the Irish, but they sing the Gloria and other parts of the Mass in Latin. Their hymns during the offertory procession and Communion are in their own languages, but they are reverent, and we emerge from these Masses knowing we worshiped the Lord with joy. They have much to teach us.
As a pastor, I built on one important foundation: No one wants irreverence. The faithful might not always recognize what’s reverent and what’s not, but no one wants irreverence. The point of the “active participation” in the Mass is prayer. It is worship. And whatever fosters an interior life of prayer is what builds up the Church.
Let me confess to you, my brothers and sisters: some of this was selfish. I wanted to be able to actually pray at Mass — not be irritated during it. What many people don’t realize is that for a priest, offering the Mass is the highlight of the day — really, the highlight of our life. But to do it well, a priest must be able to pray — and that requires silence in the liturgy.
I had the joy of attending the Pascha — their Easter Vigil — at Columbus’ Eritrean Catholic church. It was beautiful. I knew nothing of the language, but that didn’t matter. I could still understand what was happening, and I could see how they were worshiping God — and that they were worshiping God. Sacred beauty in the liturgy is a universal language that transcends our differences.
When things are holy and sacred, they are perceived as such by all.
And again: If God is lost, all is lost. So we must keep our eyes and our hearts focused on the Lord. I pray that the Church understands the fundamental unity shared by the last three popes — a unity rooted in the truth that interior, prayerful participation in the Mass is the most important thing we can do.
Bishop Earl Fernandes is the shepherd of the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio.
This article was originally posted here at the National Catholic Register.
