I would like to focus on
just one aspect of his homily here, adding a few comments of my own.
Fr. Andersen, after developing the notion of appreciation
for and consecration of our senses to God, goes on to use this example (my emphases throughout):
There
is also the ancient practice among Christians of keeping custody of the eyes.
This deprivation of the senses aids us in our growing in holiness. The ancient rubrics of the Mass instruct a
priest to keep custody of the eyes even with God. So for instance, at the
beginning of the Mass, the priest keeps a downward glance, not looking at the people nor at the Crucifix. Even after he
approaches the altar, he keeps his eyes
cast down through the Confiteor and the Kyrie Eleison. He
does not look up at our Lord on the Cross until the singing of the Gloria,
having been thus reconciled with God. But why
does he avoid looking at the people? He avoids eye contact with the
faithful because he is not to draw
attention to his own person, but only to his office as priest. His office is
that of the Eternal Priest, Jesus Christ. So his actions are those of the Church and not of his own personality.
In this way, the man who is the priest becomes invisible, and the priest, who
is a man of the Church, communicates the sacramental actions of Christ and not
his own actions.
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| Mass: It's not a media event! |
That also reminds me of a
comment by Fr. Paul Nicholson in one of the videos available on ChurchMilitant.TV
(“Weapons of Mass Destruction, Part II”). In discussing his own “discovery” of
the EF Mass and ad orientem worship,
he notes that people don’t need to see whether Father has a happy face this
morning, or if he looks upset about something so that they think they need to
say something to him. And he also points out quite humorously that the priest “doesn’t
need to see people getting up and going to the bathroom!”
When the priest and the
people all turn toward the Lord, they don’t focus on each other or themselves,
but instead place the focus exactly where it belongs, all together, of one
accord.
Back to Fr. Andersen’s homily and the healing of the deaf-mute:
This
is what Christ Himself shows us in the Gospel today. His action is a
sacramental action. Looking up to heaven, he touches the man’s ears. He spits
on His own finger and touches the man’s tongue, but He looks up to heaven while He does this. He does not look at the man while he heals him. This is so that the
man will understand that the healing comes from heaven. It comes from God and
not from man. It comes from the divinity of Christ, and it is communicated
through his humanity.
The
man is deprived of his sense of sight in order to be healed. We can see this in the sacrament of
Confession. The modern practice allows
for the hearing of confessions face to face, but I would argue that it does not communicate what is actually
happening in the sacrament. We do not confess our sins to the man who is the priest facing us. We confess our sins to Jesus Christ, through the priest who is a man. But it is Jesus Christ who is
listening to our sins and who absolves our sins through the sacrament. When we are deprived of looking at the face
of the priest, whether through a screen or by closing our eyes, then we are more aware that it is God to whom
we are speaking. It is God who forgives our sins. There is a man who becomes
invisible to us so that we can see God.
That makes so much sense! I
think we fall too much into the trap of modern psychological counseling
sessions with face-to-face confession. Certainly, the priest is to offer some
spiritual advice, but few priests have training in psychological counseling – which
I think is what people often come to expect in face-to-face confession.
Face-to-face interaction with an untrained counselor can lead to subtle
reinforcement of certain ways of thinking or confessing which the penitent
might have (in fact, in any situation, if the listener nods and makes “affirming”
comments, this will increase the frequency of those types of comments). If the priest is “invisible” to the penitent,
and the penitent is “invisible” to the priest, both can remove some of the
human hindrance of the sacrament and give the Holy Spirit more opportunity to
do what He wants to do.
Fr. Andersen also makes the
following point about the Eucharist:
Likewise,
in the consecration of the Holy
Eucharist, there is a reason why this has traditionally been hidden from our eyes. It is hidden so that we may believe. When it is so
open, we see the piece of bread now at this moment as the priest picks it up,
says some words and lifts it above his head. But all the while we see the piece of bread and it does not
appear to change. Our minds need a transition. That is why it has
historically always been slightly obscured or hidden altogether so that we do
not see it clearly until after the
consecration when it is lifted up to God and what we see is Jesus Christ. Through
the deprivation of our senses, we see more, we believe more.
Back in my Pentecostal
Christian days, we used to sing a song that said, “We walk by faith”, etc.
There was the implication that we had
more faith than anybody else. In the process of becoming Catholic, though, I
learned about the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. And I have thought
to myself more than once that that is
a teaching that really requires
faith. That teaching requires more faith than anything I was taught in my
Pentecostal church, because that mystery
is greater than any other mystery.
In communities and groups
where the extraordinary form of the Mass is preferred and accessible, all of
these aspects discussed by Fr. Andersen are present. The Mass is said ad orientem; the faithful seem to prefer
confession with a screen separating priest and penitent (and seem to value
frequent confession); the consecration is obscured. Consequently, the faithful
who attend the EF Mass, compared to those who attend the NO Mass exclusively,
appear to have a greater awareness of the Real Presence – or at least they show
more outward signs of reverence for it.
And, in my experience, the
priest who knows how to celebrate the extraordinary form of the Mass – and does
so regularly – gives a better homily than his NO-only brother priests; he speaks
the truth clearly and concisely in an effort to get his sheep to Heaven.
Just sayin’.
For more posts on the TLM and liturgical abuse, click on the tab at the top of the page.
For more homilies by Fr. Andersen, click on the tab at the top of the page.
For more posts on the TLM and liturgical abuse, click on the tab at the top of the page.
For more homilies by Fr. Andersen, click on the tab at the top of the page.
