Dooley comes on strong from the offset, seeking to rouse the reader to life and commitment toward rejuvenating the Church. He seeks to motivate that by encouraging Catholics to focus on taking what we know and have already and doing it well. I loosely assert that the following quote could be his thesis:
"If, in other words, the Church is in the midst of a terrible predicament, it is in large part because everything that once kept Catholics focused on Christ has been repudiated in favor of liturgical 'innovation.' This, to repeat, is not to say that the liturgy cannot be adapted to the age. But it does mean that when it comes to timeless things, we ought to tread carefully lest we lose sight of the sacred." (p. 9)He refers to this tendency to innovate and divert from tradition as the "culture of rupture." Dooley's vision for the renewal and increased vitality of the Church is a recommitment to the beauty of liturgy, specifically the centrality and transcendence of the Eucharist. He draws upon a beautiful quote from Pope Benedict XVI as well: "Being a living manifestation of the sanctity of Christ, the liturgy is, in Ratzinger's beautiful expression, the 'common homeland' for a Catholic, the very centre and 'source' of his [or her] identity." (p. 53)
He goes on at length about the importance of a thoughtfully celebrated Eucharistic liturgy as the heart of the faith, the heart of lived faith, of parish life, of the Church as a whole. Dooley seems to understand thoroughly well that the Eucharist offers us Catholics a wonderful rhythm for our lives.
Not all of us can practice the piety of daily-mass-going or regular Adoration. However, we are all called to come together on Sunday mornings for the Eucharistic liturgy.
I feel like we can refer to Mass as such because, though it is about equal parts Word and Eucharist, the whole of the action in our mass is Eucharistic - thanksgiving, memorial, and communion throughout each of the four pieces of our celebration. Moreover, the ritual action of the Eucharist - the bread is taken, blessed, broken, and shared - is what summarizes why we are drawn to celebrate in this way and how it sustains and renews us. Look closely.
We come together to be taken in by Christ, by Jesus Himself but also through His people gathered together to welcome one another and celebrate together, under the Holy Spirit, guiding His Church.
Christ blesses us - the priest leads us in invoking the Trinity to bless ourselves with the sign of His cross; we bow for blessings before we leave sometimes; we bless ourselves with holy water to manifest the profundity of our baptisms when we enter and exit the church.
We are broken: we process up to the altar table to receive Christ, each coming from our pew or section in the congregation, coming with our family, friends, and other brothers and sisters, but ultimately encountering Christ in a personal moment when you, as one person, say your Amen to Christ before you, adding it to the sea of belief that swims around you.
Christ shares us: the mass is ended; let us go forth glorifying God with our lives. The mass inherently requires a temporal and spatial end in one way - the rite of dismissal prompts us to leave the physical place we are in. However, the spirit of the mass, the renewal we feel from receiving Christ into our hearts and realizing His presence both in the body and blood we receive and in the people around us, goes on. The mass is never ended.
Christ takes us in, offers countless blessings, breaks us into individual persons to come to us personally, and then he sends us forth, to be His hands and feet as individuals and as part of something bigger.
I'm appreciative to Mr. Dooley for sending me off on such a nice Eucharistic-living tilt. It added more depth to the beautiful light of such an understanding. I have Vision 2011 to thank for giving me the most thorough example in my life of living Eucharistically, each step, bit-by-bit as well as all-at-once in our awesome final mass together when I saw, more than ever before, a people being taken, blessed, broken, and shared and sent forth.
However, I'd be remiss if I didn't engage with Mr. Dooley's closing point. He builds on the centrality and primacy of Eucharist, of beautiful and diligent liturgy, with a critical analysis of modern participation norms.
Without criticizing it explicitly, he rails a bit on lay involvement in liturgical exercises. He talks about his grandfather, a faithful man, beloved by his home parish for his piety, loyalty, commitment, and service. Through stories of grandpa's words and actions, Dooley talks about how grandpa diligently collected the envelopes in the baskets on Sundays but would never deign to be a lector. Jobs like that are reserved for priests, and lay people shouldn't be thinking about going up there.
Dooley carefully and intelligently argues that "active participation" should be understood more as "authentic participation." For him, that comes in the form of passionate commitment to the people's responses and gestures during mass - the words but also the sit-stand-and-kneel, the genuflection. To his credit, Dooley doesn't treat priests as sacred cows. He criticizes the poor leadership in increasingly liberalized seminaries and priests who don't take care to vest properly for sacraments and masses. However, I can't support his opposition to lay people taking on mass ministries.
He did pretty well to quote and cite church documents, and I failed to go to the sources and understand the context of his citations. I can only say that in response to reading the whole of his argument that lay people serving as lectors, EMs, cantors, and altar servers is a natural and appropriate part of celebrating the mass.
Now that does need qualification, too; namely that (1) the sanctuary can't become a zoo. It's a sacred space, set apart for the ambo and altar. It must not be flooded with people and distraction. It should be arranged that ministers can be seated appropriately in a way befitting to the sacred space. (2) Ministers need to be trained, not just in their ministry but in proper reverence for the altar and sanctuary. And lazy catechesis is just not excusable here. Watch Notre Dame's basilica masses on mass cast to see how a diligent rector/MC, who is a priest, handles this with grace and inclusive consideration.
As long as you can account for those two major things, I think lay people, especially lay women, need to have a fair opportunity to be involved in the mass and be present as ministers, even in the sanctuary. Christ tore the veil of the sanctuary in two with his victory over death; it isn't just for high priests anymore. Lay people aren't there just to kneel, say prompted things, bring the gifts to the bottom step, and collect the envelopes. They're there to be full and active sharers in the whole of the Eucharistic liturgy.
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that masses lacking such lay involvement are lesser or inferior because they are still The Mass. However, I think active denial of such involvement of lay people is dangerous and alienating. If I were smarter, I'd rifle through Vatican II docs and find the stuff that supports this. Mr. Dooley isn't wrong, and he's got the goods to back it up. I don't think our understandings are incompatible either. I think authentic participation and active participation can be one in the same, and that my lectoring enhances my experience of being present for the Mass.
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