Be reverent at Mass, Vatican official tells Catholics
Courtesy: Catholic News Service
Be reverent at Mass, Vatican official tells Catholics
By Simon Caldwell
4/6/2006
The head of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the
Sacraments
urged Catholics to be reverent during Mass and to venerate the
Eucharist
properly.
LONDON (CNS) --During a talk in Westminster Cathedral April 1, Nigerian
Cardinal Francis Arinze called on priests to restore tabernacles to
central
positions in churches and for Catholics to rediscover the tradition of
reverent genuflection in the presence of the Eucharist.
He also called for an end to adding details to and subtracting them
from the
approved rites of the Mass and for an end to soft background music
during
Mass and other times when people were trying to pray in church.
"This is doubtless well intentioned, but it is a mistake," said the
cardinal. "People enter churches to pray, not to be entertained."
The cardinal told about 400 audience members that Mass was the "supreme
act
of adoration, praise and thanksgiving which humanity can offer God."
"Man is not the center of reality. God is. By adoring God through the
holy
Eucharist, we pay this due tribute to God's transcendence," he said.
"Those
who refuse to adore God must not decorate themselves with the
apparently
nice title of liberal intellectuals."
The cardinal said that a person who refused to give God the adoration
he
truly deserved was like a child who refused to respect his parents, and
as a
result harmed his or her own best interests.
"Would it be wrong to call him stupid?" asked the cardinal.
He said Christians must not allow themselves to be "misled by the
errors" of
a secular mentality "which lives as if God did not exist."
He said attention had to be paid to the roles of every Mass
participant,
especially the priest, who must act "in such a way that his faith and
devotion shine out."
Cardinal Arinze said the October Synod of Bishops stressed that the
tabernacle should be the "center of our attention and prayer."
But, he said, some "misguided" people still relegated tabernacles to
obscure
corners of their churches, where it sometimes was difficult for
visitors to
locate.
"A do-it-yourself mentality, an attitude of 'nobody will tell me what
to
do,' or a defiant sting of 'if you do not like my Mass you can go to
another
parish' is not only against sound theology and ecclesiology, but also
offends against common sense," he said. "Unfortunately, sometimes
common
sense is not very common, when we see a priest ignoring liturgical
rules and
installing creativity -- in his case idiosyncrasy -- as the guide to
the
celebration of the Mass."
The talk, titled "The Eucharistic Mystery Calls for Our Response," was
the
key event of an afternoon dedicated to "thinking about and celebrating"
the
church's liturgy. Three English prelates -- Cardinal Cormac
Murphy-O'Connor
of Westminster, Archbishop Kevin McDonald of Southwark and Bishop
Thomas
McMahon of Brentwood and Auxiliary Bishop Mark Coleridge of
Melbourne,
Australia, were among those who attended.