Transcript:
Host: Another exciting thing you can do while you’re here, if you’re not currently a member of the Latin Mass Society, is to consider that you would have missed out on a five-pound discount to attend this conference. To console you in that unfortunate situation, you can go to Mr. Lord and get a five-pound discount today only by joining the Latin Mass Society, so you won’t be any worse off.
Now, that does mean actually joining the Latin Mass Society, which involves signing on the dotted line. I know some people have a sort of psychological aversion to signing or joining things, but in our society, I hope your experience today hasn’t been entirely made up of loonies. At least they’re nice loonies. I like to think of it that way.
It really is a worthwhile organization, and events like this wouldn’t happen without a group like this in our society. I can assure you, this is not a profit-making day for us. I’m not complaining, that’s what we do. We put on events like this because it’s part of our charitable objectives, but we can only do that with the support of our members.
But you all want to hear Bishop Schneider, not me. So, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana in Kazakhstan, where he was born by an extraordinary series of historical circumstances, which I couldn’t possibly go into, but it’s an amazing work of providence that he’s found himself back there. He has been writing these books and is able to give solace to traditional Catholics all over the world.
In fact, this is his second visit to England, and we’re very grateful indeed for his making this great journey to visit us here again.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Reverend Fathers, dear priests, my dear brothers and sisters. I would like to speak to you about the theme “The Renewal of the Liturgy According to the Perennial Sense of the Church.”
The first point is the adoration of God as an essential characteristic of the Sacred Liturgy, in order to increase the aspect of faith and the sense of adoration in liturgical celebrations.
First of all, it is necessary to know and understand what is being celebrated. There must be an integral and profound catechesis about the nature of prayer, and especially about the nature of the Holy Mass. That means an understanding of the law of being in prayer.
The knowledge of the being, or of the nature, of the liturgy is only possible through the supernatural light of faith. From a correct understanding of the beginning flows the proper way of living lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi. The Church has always admonished her ministers: agnosce quod agis, be aware of what you are doing.
The words of the Lord, “If you knew the gift of God” (John 4:10), refer in the highest manner to the Holy Mass. The liturgy of the Holy Mass is the celebration of the mystery of the faith, as such, of the ineffable mystery of the adoration of the Triune God, and at the same time, of the mystery of human redemption.
The Eucharistic liturgy is the most sublime realization of the first commandment, of which Jesus reminded us: “You shall adore the Lord your God and worship Him alone.”
Every time we participate in the Holy Mass, we should enter into the spirit of Christ. Only Christ, the God-man, is capable of adoring God in an adequate manner, since only He is the Holy One. St. Thomas Aquinas said that a proper act of religion, and consequently of faith, is to offer God reverence and adoration.
Saint John Paul II explained the very nature of the liturgy. The celebration of the liturgy is an act of the virtue of religion that, consistent with its nature, must be characterized by a profound sense of the sacred. In this, man and the entire community must be aware of being, in a special way, in the presence of Him who is three times holy and transcendent. Consequently, the attitude of imploring cannot but be permeated by reverence and by the sense of faith that comes from knowing that one is in the presence of the majesty of God. Did God not want to express this when He ordered Moses to take off his sandals before the burning bush? The attitude of Moses and Elijah, who dared not look at God’s face, yet saw Him face to face, arises from this awareness.
In the liturgy of the Holy Mass, all details, even the smallest, have their reason for existence in the proclamation of the glory of God, not of the glory of man. All things in the liturgy of the Holy Mass, beginning with the sign of the cross until the final benediction, should proclaim Propter magnam gloriam tuam and Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.
God has no need of our praise, and the fact that we can praise Him is a gift of God. Our praise does not increase His glory, but gives us salvation.
The second point is the liturgical norms and interior adoration. The fact that there are precise liturgical norms that must be faithfully observed belongs to divine revelation. God Himself ordered His worship in the Old Testament. The liturgical norms should, however, be carried out with interior attention, that is, with the heart. And this too is a divine law.
To establish an opposition between these two divine laws, the exterior norms and the attention of the heart, or to treat them as optional alternatives, would be contrary to divine truth. Such a contrast has often been proposed by heretical movements that neglected or refused the exterior norms. For example, the Christian Gnostics in the second century, the Cathars and Albigensians in the 12th and 13th centuries, the Calvinists in the 16th century, and some Catholic Pentecostals and Catholic progressives of various degrees in our own time.
The most sublime example of the observance of exterior liturgical norms, combined with the interior disposition of the heart, is Jesus Christ Himself. God heard Him for His reverence with which He prayed.
As the Letter to the Hebrews says, I quote: In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard for His godly fear.
The Lord, His most holy Mother Mary, and St. Joseph faithfully observed all liturgical norms. St. Thomas Aquinas says in the hymn Pange Lingua that Jesus fully observed the ancient law of divine worship, observata lege plena, since He did not claim to abolish the law but to bring it to fulfillment and perfection. The liturgical spirit of the Divine Savior expresses itself in the faithful observance of the exterior norms together with the interior attention of the heart. This was, is, and will always remain an essential characteristic of the liturgy of the Church.
The apostles transmitted this spirit, and the Church, during 2000 years, has faithfully kept it. Disrespect of the exterior liturgical norms has always had the order of heresy. Regarding the liturgical norms, the Roman Church has always maintained the principle formulated already in the third century by Saint Pope Stephen I. I quote his short principle: Nichil innovetur nisi quod traditum est.
I translate this into English: There should be no innovations unless they have been transmitted. Innovations with the characteristic of an obvious rupture with tradition have always been rejected by the Roman Church.
At the beginning of the fifth century, Saint Pope Innocent I, in a letter to Censor, Bishop of Gubbio, opposed such innovations in the liturgy. He named six points in this letter.
First, what had been transmitted by the apostles, the bishops must observe integrally.
Second, there should be any substantial diversity or variety in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice in the Church.
Third, such innovations, which at those times had been introduced, were not transmitted but appeared newly because everyone introduced what he liked. Unus Christus non quadrat sibi. Here, Pope Innocent criticized innovations at the beginning of the fifth century.
Fourth, these innovations scandalize the people. Fiat scandalum populis.
Fifth, these innovations in liturgy corrupt by human presumption the ancient traditions traditiones antiquas humanae praeacensionis corruptae.
And sixth, in liturgical norms, the Roman Church has always kept the ancient rules which were transmitted by the apostles or apostolic men. Regulae veteres a apostolis vel apostolicis traditae, Ecclesia Romana custodia.
So, in liturgical reforms, the Roman Church has always followed the ancient norm of the fathers, Pristina norma patrum. This ancient norm of the fathers was stressed by St. Pius V in the Bull Quo Primum as well as by the Second Vatican Council in Sacrosanctum Concilium, number 50. The phrase Pristina norma patrum is quoted from Pius V.
Furthermore, the Second Vatican Council formulated this principle in Sacrosanctum Concilium, 23. I quote: There must be no innovations in the liturgy, a principle of the Second Vatican Council. There must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them. Care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing.
The third principle is the orientation of liturgical prayer. This is a requirement of the visible adoration of God. There is a need to regain all that which helps and augments the true liturgical spirit, which is the liturgical spirit of Jesus Christ Himself.
This liturgical spirit is characterized essentially by reverence animated by supernatural and filial love. The Second Vatican Council has taught us the true liturgical spirit, which ultimately consists in the absolute primacy of God, in the supernatural primacy, in the primacy of the eternal, and in the primacy of contemplation.
I quote the Council in Sacrosanctum Concilium, number 2: The human is directed and subordinated to the divine in liturgy, the visible likewise to the invisible action, to contemplation, and this present world to the city yet to come which we seek.
The apostles and the first Christians lived such a liturgical spirit. I quote Acts of the Apostles, 9:31: They walked in the fear of the Lord, in timore Domini. All the Church, the first Christians, lived in the fear of God.
And then it continues: And the Church was edified, edified by the fear of the Lord.
Sacred Scripture gives to the Church of all times a sublime model to be imitated in liturgical celebrations. This model is the Liturgy of the Heavenly Jerusalem, described in the Book of the Apocalypse, with concrete attitudes, gestures, and signs.
There are seven principles or attitudes in the Book of the Apocalypse, which is the liturgical book of the first Church.
First, kneeling, deep inclinations, and prostrations. We find these in Apocalypse 4:10 and 7:11.
Second, incense, which we also find in the Apocalypse.
Third, sacred songs, the new canticle, novo cantico. This means not performing worldly or sensual music, but singing in a spiritual and new manner as the redeemed creature. Apocalypse 5:9.
Fourth, to be free from concentration on oneself, from one’s own glory and the glory of creatures. The Apocalypse shows us that the elders, angels, and saints put their own crowns at the feet of the throne of God and the Lamb.
Fifth, to pray and sing together with the angels. This means being conscious of the presence of the holy angels in the liturgy, which is also a principle.
Sixth, there has to be a prolonged space of time for silence during liturgical celebrations. Apocalypse 8:1 says there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. This was the liturgy in heavenly silence.
Do we have silence in liturgy? Thanks be to God, in the traditional Mass, yes. We have silence, at least during the Canon, the Roman Canon. In the reformed new order, we have almost no silence. But we must be faithful to the first Church. This was the liturgy of the first Church: half an hour of silence.
The last point is to put Christ, the immolated and living Lamb of God, in the visible center of the liturgical assembly. This is continuous in the Apocalypse. The Lamb is in the center. This means His throne, which is the Cross, is the throne of the Lamb, and the Eucharistic tabernacle is the throne of the Lamb. This must be in the center, and not the seat or the throne of the human celebrant.
Therefore, in the Eucharistic liturgy, all that could even in the least obscure the glory of God and the centrality of Christ on His throne, on the cross, and in the Eucharistic tabernacle must be avoided. Such obscuring is unfortunately often present in our days when the celebrant and the assembly are exalted in a self-absorbed manner by means of words, gestures, and the position of the celebrant celebrant in the center of the sanctuary, facing continuously the people like in a school lesson or a theatrical performance, where all the attention of the assembly is inevitably directed to such a protagonist in person.
In order that the great Eucharistic mystery might be better understood, celebrated, and received with more awareness and fruit, the orientation of the liturgical prayer must be re-established, at least, as the most indispensable gesture for achieving this aim. Praying by looking in the same direction is an exigency of the prayer itself, and above all, of the act of adoration. The bodily gesture expresses the truth that man, and all the more the worshiping man and the whole praying Church, must be directed to God and concretely to Christ, the incarnate God, as the ultimate aim.
This rule of prayer is not only a requirement of a praying man on the natural level homo religiosus naturalis, but it was also observed by the praying man on the level of divine revelation. There are two levels: the level of natural prayer, which is the natural knowing of God, and the supernatural. These are essentially different levels, but even so, there is a common principle.
In this manner, prayers were performed in the Temple of Jerusalem, looking in the same direction, or in the synagogue. In this manner, Jesus Himself prayed, as did His most holy Mother and St. Joseph when they visited the temple or the synagogue. Jesus prayed together with the apostles during the Last Supper since all were seated on one side of the table, performing a half circle in the form of the Greek letter sigma, looking together, Jesus and the apostles, in the same direction during the Last Supper. Jesus was seated in the place of honor on the right corner, in cornu dexter, as demonstrated by the most ancient artistic representation of the Last Supper in the catacombs. About this, Father Lang of the Oratory wrote in his book.
Consequently, Jesus and the apostles did not pray facing each other. This norm of prayer was transmitted to the Church by the apostles. Above all, the Fathers of the Church stressed this norm, giving moreover a spiritual explanation. This means that Christians must face east during prayer because Christ is the East, the great letter East, who visited us from on high orient ex alto the Benedictus. He is the Son of Justice, sol iustitiae, and He will come again from the East.
The Fathers of the Church and the perennial saints of the Church have understood the Cross of Christ as the true East towards which the celebrant, together with the whole liturgical assembly, was turned, above all during the Eucharistic prayer, the moment of adoration as such. The words Conversi ad Dominum let us turn towards the Lord were pronounced by St. Augustine, for example, often after his homily, inviting the whole assembly to turn bodily towards the same direction in order to adore the Lord.
The interior aspect of turning towards the Lord necessarily demands corresponding exterior expressions. In the usus antiquior of the Roman Rite, the celebrant says at the beginning of Mass, Deus tu conversus vivificabis nos, O God, turn Thy face upon us. The people or the altar servers answer, Et plebs tua laetabitur in te and Thy people may rejoice in Thee. Christ, represented in the image of the cross on the altar or present in the tabernacle upon the altar, turns His face to the celebrating priests and to the people, inviting them to turn not only their hearts but also their bodies in the same direction to the visible sign of the face of God, which is the cross, the crucifix, or the Eucharistic tabernacle.
Furthermore, the form of prayer, when all are turning towards the same direction, not only expresses in the most adequate manner the act of adoration but also the act of offering the sacrifice to God. The Holy Mass is substantially the sacramental offering of the sacrifice of the Cross. The bodily attitude by which the celebrant and the liturgical assembly face each other, like a closed circle or sitting around a table according to the modern practice, contradicts not only the law of biblical, apostolic, and patristic prayer, and even the human religious law of prayer on the natural level, but also obscures considerably the essentially sacrificial aspect of the Holy Mass. This gives such an Eucharistic celebration, at least from the phenomenological point of view, the appearance of a supper table.
There is a real urgency to return to the gesture of being turned towards the Lord, at least from the Eucharistic Prayer on. The so-called celebration versus populum is not even prescribed by the new Missal but is an option according to liturgical norms, as affirmed by the Holy See in a responsum ad dubium from September 25, 2000. The response stated that the new Mass is not an obligation to celebrate versus populum.
In the last point, the visible adoration and the rite of Holy Communion, we must cite once more the words of Jesus, If you knew the gift of God. If the faithful truly knew the deep truth, not just what it is, but who the Holy Communion is, they would spontaneously and gladly prostrate themselves at the moment of receiving their God and Savior under the humble species of bread, acknowledging at the same time their own littleness and unworthiness.
St. Thomas Aquinas formulated the following moving expression concerning this moment: Ores mirabilis manducat Dominum, servus pauper et humilis. Wonderful thing: the mouth eats the Lord, the servant, poor and humble.
The poor and humble servant eats his love. The moment of Holy Communion is for the faithful the most moving, the most solemn, the most sacred, and the most special moment in their life. It is when we recognize in Christ, hidden under the veil of the Eucharistic species, truly the fullness of His divinity since in Him dwells bodily the fullness of the Divinity, as St. Paul said. We could not behave in any other manner but kneel down before Him, following the example of the women on the morning of Easter Day, of the apostles before Christ ascending into heaven, and of the saints and angels in heaven before the immolated Body of the Lamb of God.
The manner in which the faithful receive the Most Holy Body of Christ directly on the tongue, without touching it or placing it into the mouth with their own fingers, is, from the point of view of the gesture, far more sacred. Touching the host with one’s fingers and putting it into the mouth strongly resembles the gesture of taking ordinary, profane food. Furthermore, the gesture of allowing oneself to be fed like a child expresses in a moving way the unique, true attitude of humility and spiritual infancy in the moment of receiving the most sacred and greatest gift of God.
Not least, the reception of the Body of Christ, the most precious and at the same time the most fragile and defenseless treasure, demands the greatest care and attention to avoid as much as possible the loss of even the smallest fragment, and to prevent the danger of profanation and stealing of hosts. This is proven by daily facts from all over the world: the continuous loss of fragments and the stealing of hosts. Can we still remain indifferent in the face of these facts? For a soul-loving Christ, this should be truly horrible.
Why not return to the manner, well-tried over a millennial period, which is both safer and more sacred? That is, receiving the Body of Christ directly on the tongue, thereby avoiding the loss of fragments and considerably reducing cases of stolen hosts. Why not return to the docility towards the ardent admonitions of Pope Paul VI, who pleaded for the conservation of the traditional manner of the rite of Holy Communion throughout the Church? In 1969, he stressed hunc sanctam communionem distributionis modum, that is, “this holy manner of communion and distribution must be preserved everywhere throughout the universal Church, considering the situation of the Church in our days.”
Who is obedient to the voice of Paul VI? Furthermore, I cite the Apostolic See: Apostolicae Sedis, which vehemently exhorts bishops, priests, and the faithful to diligently observe the valid, traditional, and repeatedly confirmed law of receiving Holy Communion. Who obeys this voice of Paul VI? He strongly asks bishops to be faithful to the traditional manner of distributing Holy Communion.
I will now present some possible arguments in favor of continuing the practice of receiving the Body of Christ standing and in the hand. These possible arguments in favor of receiving Communion standing and in the hand lose their consistency in light of the objectively grave and often horrible realities: the loss of Eucharistic fragments, the increasing stealing of hosts, and the considerable obscuring of the sacred, sublime, and solemn nature of the most important moment for the faithful on this earth. Indeed, there is a profound need for a renewed and ardent preferential option for the poorest and most defenseless among us on this earth. This is the Eucharistic Jesus at the moment of Communion distribution.
The faithful, in the moment of receiving Holy Communion, should interiorly hear the voice of the Lord addressed to him and to the whole Church: “If you knew the gift of God.” The true response of the faithful and the liturgical assembly to these words of the Lord should be the heartfelt and bodily expressed “Lord, I believe and adore,” in accordance with the perennial liturgical sense of the Church.
In conclusion, all details and moments of the liturgical celebration should reflect these truths expressed in the verses of the Psalms:
- Psalm 5:8: “I will enter your house, O Lord; I will worship toward your holy temple in the fear of you.”
- Psalm 26:8 (Vulgate numbering 27:4): “Lord, I love the beauty of your house and the place where your glory dwells.”
The glory of God indeed dwells visibly in the Body of Christ, in the Eucharistic Body, since in every Holy Mass He becomes flesh and establishes His tent, the Shekinah of His glory, in the midst of us. The celebrant and the faithful should consequently proclaim: “Yes, we have beheld His glory, the glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” These divine words are the concluding words of the Holy Mass according to the Usus Antiquior, the traditional Mass. Rarely can one find words so liturgically fitting to conclude the most perfect act of divine adoration on this earth.
For in the Holy Mass, the whole public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, His Head and His members, as the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council reminded us.
Thank you for your attention.