EDUCATION THE SACRAMENT OF REDEMPTION AND THE LITURGICAL ABUSE: TELL IT TO THE BISHOPS, DON'T TELL MARK ZUCKERBERG AND ELON MUSK

In conclusion, thinking about it, every community of the faithful always ends up having the priest it deserves, exactly like us priests, that we often end up "condemned" to a just and deserved punishment to have the bishops we deserve.

— Pastoral Liturgical —

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Iour brother Ivano Liguori he dealt with the problem of liturgical abuses, even if in the specific case the abuse had the connotations of sacrilege perpetrated during the celebration of the Holy Mass [cf.. WHO, WHO, WHO, WHO].

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in liturgical language it is customary to speak of the Canon of the Holy Mass. The word stock canon it is the precise norm to be followed to celebrate divine worship. The fee is by its nature fixed and rigid. Unfortunately, when certain terms are used, today many tend to turn up their noses because they do not know the true meaning of words and end up confusing "fixed" with fixism and "rigid" with rigidity. Nothing more wrong. The celebrant is a faithful and scrupulous instrument of the sacred liturgy, non-master or arbitrary master, worse than ever: free creator. The sacred liturgy invests the life of the entire universal Church, of which it is an expression and common prayer of praise to God. Creatively abusing the sacred liturgy means making it unstable and taking away that univocal dimension, common and universal prayer. This is why the liturgical abuse, whether small or big, gives rise to a double fracture: with the communion of the Church and with its dimension of universality. We recall that the etymology of the word "Catholic", dal greco throughout, it means universal and thus indicates its universality.

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The 25 March 2004, Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, “by disposition of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, drawn up by the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, in agreement with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” the Instruction was issued Sacramentum. Subtitle: «On some things that are to be observed and avoided concerning the Most Holy Eucharist».

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The final closing of this Document, with the subjects involved, immediately makes us understand that we are not dealing with a series of pious recommendations but with a text that is binding on both conscience and practice, and whoever does not comply commits a real abuse, the gravity of which can reach the point of actual sacrilege, as unfortunately we have also seen recently.

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Someone will object that in this way the wings of initiative and creativity are clipped. Generally these types of objections come from the mouth of those who have made relativism - a truly great corrosive disease of the contemporary Church - a sort of norma normans non normata, forgetting that the Church, of a treasure that is so absolute, because it was left as a gift by the Divine Redeemer, is keeper, no mistress. In the Eucharistic liturgy the Church celebrates the perennial actualization of the saving action of the Lord Jesus in her life, in his passion, in his crucifixion, in his death and resurrection [cf.. n. 40], for this after the consecration of the sacred species, the People of God acclaim the living body and blood of Christ present in soul, spirit and divinity:

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"We announce your death, Lord, we proclaim your resurrection, waiting for your coming".

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There is a basic question which runs through the entire education: it is really necessary to pay attention to liturgical abuses? It is not enough to reaffirm the importance and the need to follow the liturgical norms according to the spirit of the Second Vatican Council which affirms:

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«the integral public cult is exercised by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, from the Head and its members. As a result, every liturgical celebration, as the work of Christ the priest and of his Body which is the Church, it is sacred action par excellence» [Holy Council, n. 7].

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On the columns of this magazine It has been explained several times over the years that if, after six decades since the closing of a great ecumenical council, the Church has found itself forced to publish two very specific corrective documents - these are the Lord Jesus (c)he reaffirms the salvific uniqueness of Christ and his Church, to follow with the Sacramentum in which he refers to the basic foundations of art celebration - something went wrong. That said, it is good to clarify that it was not the Council that malfunctioned, element of necessary pastoral renewal which the Church needed, exactly as it was four centuries ago another great Council, that of Trent. To malfunction, indeed sometimes very badly, it was the post-council interpreters of the so-called spirit of the Council who often ended up generating an idea of ​​the Council all their own. this is what didn't work and generated the problems we sadly have to deal with today. Who takes advantage of certain objective data, from doctrinal bewilderment to often almost institutionalized liturgical abuses, to impute the blame to the last Council of the Church, one of two: or sin of profound ignorance, or, out of pure ideology, consciously lies.

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In the Encyclical Letter Church of the Eucharist preceding education by one year Sacramentum the Holy Pontiff John Paul II recalls that the liturgical norms

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“they are a concrete expression of the authentic ecclesiality of the Eucharist; this is their deepest sense. The liturgy is never anyone's private property, nor of the celebrant, nor of the community in which the Mysteries are celebrated. The priest who faithfully celebrates the Mass according to the liturgical norms and the community which conforms to them demonstrate, in a silent but eloquent way, their love for the Church" [cf.. n. 52].

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Obviously that's not enough only one external participation, because celebrating the Eucharist requires faith, hope and charity. In this regard, the Instruction states Sacramentum:

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“A purely external observance of the rules, as is evident, would conflict with the essence of the sacred liturgy, in which Christ the Lord wants to gather his Church, why it is, with him, “one body and one spirit”. The external act must be, therefore, enlightened by the faith and charity which unite us to Christ and to one another and generate love for the poor and afflicted".

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Abuses have always existed, also in the so-called "Everlasting Mass", neologism invented by whose mind, playing with Latin, it ignores not only the history of the liturgy, but the same history of the Church. However it is good to remember that as far as the Eucharistic celebration is concerned, not all abuses have the same weight. If in fact it can happen to inadvertently get the color of a sacred vestment wrong, to mistakenly use an ordinary preface when the liturgy provides for one of its own, or to use unsuitable songs, in this case we are in the realm of human error. Other abuses threaten instead: or to invalidate what is being celebrated, or to manifest an absolute lack of Eucharistic faith, producing devastating effects on the People of God, in an ever higher and more disturbing decay of the Eucharistic cult and of the perception of its sacredness which supports the very structure of the Church, which is in itself a Eucharistic mystery, because it is founded on the body and blood of the Word of God made man. Other abuses, on the other hand, risk generating confusion among the people of God, or even to desecrate the celebration itself. That is why abuse cannot be taken lightly, as if they were … excesses of creativity.

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One thing is certain: all members of the Church need liturgical formation, which is sadly missing today. The Second Vatican Council specifies that it is absolutely necessary to give first place to the liturgical formation of the clergy [cf.. Holy Council, n. 14]. But it is also true that they exist in one or another ecclesial context, abuses that contribute to obscuring the right faith and the Catholic doctrine on this wonderful Sacrament [cf.. Church of the Eucharist, n. 10]. The Sacramentum specifies that "Abuses are often rooted in a false concept of freedom" [cf.. n. 7]. “Arbitrary acts, indeed, do not contribute to an effective renewal" [cf.. n. 11]. It is good to clarify what has been reaffirmed in several acts and documents of the magisterium: "Such abuses have nothing to do with the authentic spirit of the Council and must be corrected by the Pastors with an attitude of prudent firmness" [cf.. John Paul II, 40 anniversary of the conciliar Constitution on the Liturgy, Apostolic letter Spirit and bride, n. 15]. The Instruction clarifies the same Sacramentum:

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“To those who modify the liturgical texts on their own authority, it is important to point out that the sacred liturgy is intimately connected with the principles of doctrine, and the use of unapproved texts and rites consequently causes it to weaken, or get lost altogether, the necessary link between the the law of prayer the A law of belief» [cf.. n. 10], (known Latin expression which in the language of the sacred liturgy means: the law of prayer is the law of believing).

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For Catholic believers reading this Instruction would indeed be very instructive, it is no coincidence that it is called Education. Surely it will be much more instructive than looking for unlikely answers about social media, if not worse, improvise liturgists and give answers that often one is not really able to give, contributing in this way only to generate confusion and sterile controversy, but above all to increase the lack of knowledge of the many who, in increasing numbers, but they assume they know. In fact, if the Church makes certain texts and documents available to the faithful, it is precisely to instruct them also on how it is good and proper to react to the liturgical abuses of certain celebrants. Therefore it is of little use to blame the priest forge of liturgical abuses on a page Facebook. The Church indicates precisely which are the errors and abuses that no celebrant must commit, after which it indicates to the faithful how to act and who to contact. He does not exhort them to go looking for improbable answers where it is impossible to find them, or worse to argue where the controversy will end up being something solely an end in itself.

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Many would be examples, let's pick one at random: several times it happened to us priests to collect the discomfort of the faithful who complained about the unjustified use of extraordinary ministers of Communion, if anything, while the celebrant was seated at the headquarters and a couple of lay people were distributing the Most Holy Eucharist. We are undoubtedly dealing with a serious abuse, the Instruction itself specifies it by clarifying:

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«It is reprehensible the practice of those Priests who, although present at the celebration, however, they abstain from distributing Communion, entrusting the laity with this task" [cf.. n. 157].

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This rule was in turn preceded twenty years earlier by a reply of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments [11 July 1984: AAS 76 (1984) p. 746]. This delicate task entrusted to the laity is in itself an altogether extraordinary ministry, in fact, it pertains to ordained ministers, to the presbyter and the deacon, distribute Holy Communion to the faithful. Only in cases where the ordained ministers are not sufficient for the large number of people, appeal can be made to the ministers of Communion, who exercise a wholly extraordinary ministry.

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Faced with abuses of this kind and to the numerous others described in this Instruction, on which it would not be possible to dwell, the Catholic faithful are required to contact their bishop, certainly not a Facebook e Twitter, because our dioceses are not governed by either Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, who among other things cannot exercise any power over priests or admonish them for any reason.

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Before the objective responsibilities of our clergy, defective and sinful, we don't back down, indeed we are the first to admit the obvious mistakes of the few or many of our confreres who unfortunately seem to celebrate at times almost with their feet. However, the responsibilities of those faithful are no less serious, or presumed such, that instead of informing the bishop, as they should do, they think they can complain with the rag of their clothes on social media, even better if behind a fantasy name, because in that case they will become extremely aggressive and severe, rather than act as God commands and assume all their responsibilities as Catholic believers, simply informing the bishop.

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In conclusion, thinking about it, every community of the faithful always ends up having the priest it deserves, exactly like us priests, that we often end up "condemned" to a just and deserved punishment to have the bishops we deserve.

Florence, 10 December 2022

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