The Power of the Liturgical Assembly

#31

Liturgy Notes

3-19-06

The Power of the Liturgical Assembly
Reflections of Bishop Donald Trautman

What if Mass were not something we went to, but something we did? What if, instead of watching the priest offering Mass, we all offered Mass together?

According to the documents of the Second Vatican Council, this is exactly what should be happening every time we attend Mass. Because the liturgy is not a concert, a lecture, or a sports event. It is different from any other kind of gathering we attend. For at Mass, we are not observers, but participants; not passive, but active; not an audience, but a priestly assembly. In the fourth century, St. John Chrysostom exclaimed, “Great is the power of the Church in her liturgical assemblies!” Bishop Donald Trautman, Chair of the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, spoke about the power of the assembly in the keynote he delivered at the 2006 Cathedral Ministry Conference. In this issue of Liturgy Notes, I’m going to let Bishop Trautman take over! Here are some selections from his wonderful talk. You can read the whole address online at www.cathedralministry.org.

A priestly people

Bishop Donald Trautman, Bishop of Erie, Pennsylvania, and Chair of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy

It is Christ the Priest who celebrates the Eucharist just as Christ baptizes and Christ forgives sins through the instrumentality of his ordained priest. Christ is present “in the person of the minister”, so teaches Vatican II. The priest maintains the Eucharistic presence in the church. What priest and deacon do as ordained ministers is never done apart from the priestly character of all the baptized. There is a true priestly character to the Eucharistic assembly. This was understood in the early church. St. John Chrysostom brings this out in these words: “This solemn prayer of thanksgiving (the Eucharistic Prayer) belongs to priest and people alike. In it, the priest does not act alone; all the people join in giving thanks and praise. Thus, the priest may not begin the Eucharistic Prayer until the people have publicly voiced their assent with the words: ‘It is right and just to do so.’” So writes St. John Chrysostom.

In each Eucharistic Prayer there is no “I” or “me”. Each Eucharistic Prayer says: “We offer.” The “we” means the gathered liturgical assembly.

How can the unordained offer sacrifice? How is this possible? At our Baptism we were anointed as a kingdom of priests to offer living sacrifices to God. The early Christians knew that Baptism made all the difference in the world. The early Christians knew that liturgy was the work of the people, what the gathered assembly did. The early Christians knew that to be called, to be gathered, to be chosen was a gift and could only be responded to by giving thanks, that is by celebrating Eucharist.

What was recovered at the Vatican Council was the dignity of Baptism, that life in Christ begins at the baptismal font and leads to the Table. What was recovered at Vatican II was the understanding that within the Body of Christ there are many ministries and these function in mutuality. Recovered was an understanding that our bodily presence at Eucharist is not enough, that the liturgy asks for a variety of responses: prayer, song, gesture, listening, eating. What was recovered was the understanding that this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else in the reform and renewal of the liturgy.

What yet needs to be done in this area? We need a sense of the importance of the assembly so that it can be seen as the Body of Christ alive and active in the world. The first Christians made an important distinction between the house of the church and the church meaning the people. The first Christians spoke of the building as the house of the church (domus ecclesiae). They spoke of the church as the people, more especially the people at prayer in assembly.

A typical Sunday at St. James Cathedral. Together, all the people gathered around the altar offer sacrifice to God the Father. The various functions taken by the ministers—the priest, the homilist, the readers, musicians, servers, ushers, lay ministers of the Eucharist—all exist to serve the needs of the assembly—the Body of Christ.

What is the relationship of the ordained priest or deacon to the priestly people? Liturgy is not the exclusive domain or work of the clergy. Paragraph 48 of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy declares that the faithful should offer “the immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him”. These words of Vatican II affirm that … the assembly is an active agent of the Eucharist, not the passive recipient of the Eucharist.

In the early church the people as a whole, including those who presided over the assembly, were seen as the “priestly people” and thus the church. Christ is present and acts in the person of the ordained minister who celebrates. The priest is not merely entrusted with the function, but by virtue of Ordination received, he has been consecrated to act in the person of Christ. The priest leads the assembly in praise and thanksgiving.

The liturgy must be moved from something the priest does alone to a celebration by all the people. The liturgy must be moved from one activity among thousands of things the parish does…to the primary activity of the parish. From the rising to the setting of the sun, the liturgy must be the primary focus for all people, all day, all cultures, all languages. There is no better thing that can be done than to give thanks and praise to God, and we need to realize that if there is to be peace and justice, service to the poor and the elderly, Catholic education and formation, schools and hospitals, soup kitchens and blood banks, that these will be fed by the full and rich celebration of the Eucharist by the entire assembly. … the liturgical assembly must move into the streets. Members of the assembly must become a sign of the incarnational presence of Jesus transforming the life of the community. Despite our high-tech environment, countless individuals still live in physical poverty. It is not enough to pray in our petitions at the Eucharist for the hungry and the homeless. It is not enough to pray for the poor and the powerless. The Jesus we worship in the Eucharist is the same Jesus we serve in the poorest of the poor. All who stand around the Table of the Lord --- white, black, brown, yellow --- are brothers and sisters of Christ. The equality and peace we express at the Lord’s Table on Sunday must extend to all days of the week and to all tables in all households.… The cathedral assembly must be a sign of the incarnational presence of Christ, transforming the life of the city. To accomplish this the cathedral community must preach to the city the Word of God. The cathedral assembly must be a prophetic voice.

Bishop Donald Trautman

Full, Conscious, Active

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council famously says: “All the faithful should be led to that full, conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy.” Full, conscious, and active. What do those familiar words really mean? If we look at them carefully, we realize that we are asked to participate in the Mass on several levels, both interior and exterior.

Full. The assembly’s participation in the Mass full—i.e., whole, not partial. “Every liturgical celebration,” the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy says, “is an action of Christ the Priest and of his Body the Church.” The assembly is involved in the action, and, joined with the priest in the mystery of the Body of Christ, we offer sacrifice to the Father. And in that sense our presence at Mass is not just good, but essential.

Conscious. It is not enough to be there; our presence must be intentional. In the Ordination Rite, the new priest is told, “Understand what you are doing, and imitate the mystery you celebrate.” Those are challenging words, and the liturgy demands the same of us. We are not simply to be physically present, we are to understand the liturgy, to learn it, give our minds to it, to be aware, conscious, of what we are doing. If you saw the priest yawn or doze off during Mass, or read his bulletin or his missal during the homily, would you be surprised? We should demand that same conscious, attentive participation from ourselves!

Active. We are given many active ways to participate in the Mass: through spoken responses, through singing, through posture and gestures, through invitations to silent prayer, and through the great communion procession we are invited to join. Active participation means speaking or singing the responses to the very best of our ability, entering into the ritual actions of the Mass with dignity and reverence.

We who are involved in the liturgical ministries at St. James Cathedral have been called to different—though not more important—roles in our community’s worship. Have you ever caught yourself saying: “I went to Mass, but they didn’t need me.” “I didn’t get to do anything today.” “I don’t like just sitting there.” I know I have! We need to recognize that we are, first and foremost, members of the liturgical assembly. Our presence means everything. As Father Ryan said in his pastoral letter Keeping Holy the Lord’s Day, “our presence in our parish church Sunday after Sunday is something the entire community not only expects but actually depends on…. The lifeline of any parish community is the Sunday Eucharist and not to celebrate the Eucharist is not only to deny one’s self the single most important Source for personal spiritual growth, it is also to diminish the very life and health of the community itself.”

—Corinna Laughlin

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