This is an excerpt from a homily entitled “The
Importance of the Liturgy in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass”; you can listen to the entire homily
at the link. The excerpt also appears at the link (my emphases).
It is fair to say that the
liturgy directly forms our notion of
the holiness of God. Look at Sinai. Look at the tabernacle. Look at the
sanctuary. God has designed the structure of reality in such a way that the
liturgy repairs and restores Creation. It re-establishes the limits and
restores the damages unleashed by sin.
What goes on in the Divine
Liturgy determines what goes on out in the world. The graces that were lost by
Adam, the terrible offences that have been offered to God, the liturgy makes
amends for this. The liturgy reorders our fallen world. And once we realize that
the liturgy reorders all of creation,
we can begin to understand the horror of
liturgical abuse. What is a priest saying when he deliberately abuses the
liturgy?
Symbolically, liturgically,
he is re-enacting the Original Sin right in God's face. Instead of order, he is
bringing disorder; instead of grace, he's bringing sin; instead of spiritual
health, he's bringing spiritual sickness; instead of everlasting life, he's
bringing spiritual death. Instead of keeping the serpents out of the garden and
away from his people, he's turning to them and inviting them to come on in. In
effect, the priest is saying, “I will
not serve; I'll do it my way. I will dictate liturgical relationships to God. I
will set myself apart from His Law. I will be a law unto myself. I will exalt myself”. He's imitating the sons of Aaron, and unless
he repents, he'll get the same kind of punishment.
But it isn't just the
priest who's going to suffer, we're all
going to suffer. All of us. What goes on in the Divine Liturgy determines
what goes on in the world – that's reality. That's the way it is. So what're we
saying? We're saying that when massive numbers of the officially appointed
ambassadors who represent the Church Militant before the Divine Court, when
massive amounts of these divinely appointed ambassadors – that is to say
priests – are constantly and consistently re-enacting Original Sin right in the
face of God, we're gonna get exactly what we got the first time: sin,
suffering, nakedness, disorder, despair, death, and the reign of Satan.
We're saying we're gonna
get exactly what we are getting: this culture of death, this present darkness,
this new paganism. The culture of death
is the natural result of massive liturgical abuse. [I repeat: the] culture of death is the natural result of
massive liturgical abuse. The most important aspect of the solution to the
problem – of all these kinds of societal problems – is liturgical. It always
has been, and it always will be. St. Alphonsus says,
The
Lord commanded the priests of the Old Law to tremble, to reverence, when approaching the sanctuary, and still we see scandalous irreverence in priests
in the New Law when they stand at the altar in the presence of Jesus Christ.
St. Teresa of Avila used to
say,
I
would give my life for a ceremony of the Church and will a priest despise the
ceremonies of the Holy Mass?
