Liturgy News Winter 2020

5 Winter 2020 LITURGY NEWS While our pandemic experience has brought many of us to realise that electronic media are fundamentally unsuitable for liturgy, we have also learned how helpful it can be for broader spiritual and educational activities. Online retreats, prayer reflections and readings support the Christian life, and may prepare for liturgical celebration and may unfold its meaning afterwards. The great theologian Karl Rahner died in 1984 before the internet or social media; he made this comment in the early years of television in the late 1950s. How do we respond to this challenging remark sixty years after he wrote? He said that the desire to be modern may soon turn out to be highly un-modern. Once the TV set has become part of the ordinary furniture of the average person, and once someone is used to being the spectator of just about anything between heaven and earth upon which an indiscriminately curious camera preys, then it will be an unbelievably exciting thing for the philistine of the twenty-first century that there are still things which one cannot [just] view while sitting in a recliner and chewing on a burger.  Rev Dr Tom Elich is director of Liturgy Brisbane. For over 14 years, he was parish priest at Bulimba. CORONA PARAPHERNALIA A comic sideshow! It did not take them long! The face mask was quickly produced as a fashion accessory by Prada, Gucci, Fendi and Louis Vuitton. Not only that, but it has appeared as a new liturgical vestment, presumably manufactured in the full range of liturgical colours. Will it be like the obsolete maniple which began life as a hanky and became part of a matching set of vestments? What should it be called? Perhaps an Oscularium (Latin for ‘kissing place’) or a Praesidium (a ‘protection’). Some places in Germany have suggested the communion minister should stand behind a plastic shield, making the communion station a bit like a Woolies checkout counter. Others have suggested pre-packaging hosts in cellophane wrappers so that they could be left on the seats for people to hold during the Eucharistic Prayer or to make taking communion to homes more sanitary. Then we have bizarre misunderstandings: the McDonalds priests who have been offering drive-through communion in the church car park; or the questioner in an online forum asking how long was the eucharistic fast before a spiritual communion; or the suggestion of ‘remote consecration’ where the viewer places a host in front of their screen to be consecrated as the priest prays the Eucharistic Prayer. Fanciful ideas abound. CORONA PASTORAL CHALLENGES Celebrating parish Masses with limited numbers is difficult. Hospitality and welcome are key values in the Christian community and cannot be compromised. How then can we send people away if we have reached our quota? Some have suggested a ballot, but that makes attendance at liturgy like a prize to win. Others are using an online booking system where parishioners are issued a ticket. If there can be human contact in the process, it will be a pastoral opportunity to help people find a suitable occasion to come back to Mass. The pace at which churches can open up and return to sacramental practice will depend on the country and upon government regulations. Many elements will probably be suppressed until there is a vaccine to neutralise the threat of C OVID -19: holy water in the font, the sign of peace and communion from the cup. How will they be reintroduced? There will be issues scheduling the celebration of the sacraments after months of moratorium: weddings and the baptism of infants. There will need to be catch-up programs for first communion and confirmation for those who have missed out this year. Particular care will need to be taken with catechumens who could not be initiated at the Easter Vigil this year. And no doubt the bereaved families of those who were buried with no or minimal funeral rites will seek to hold a memorial service to bid farewell and commend their loved one to God’s care. Then there is the challenge of trying to hold on to the good things we have learned. How do we maintain the tradition of family Scripture reading and prayer in the home? How can a parish keep up the electronic communications by email and Zoom which have connected parishioners in a new way during the crisis? Are there new opportunities here for liturgical education and support in parishes? 4 LITURGY NEWS Winter 2020 with physical reality – Christ is not ‘physically’ present in the Eucharist as he was present to his disciples 2000 years ago. But that does not by any means reduce a sacramental presence to something symbolic which can be accessed virtually. The real sacramental presence of Christ requires actual bread, broken and eaten, actual wine, poured out and drunk. This sacrament is the means by which we are united to God. That is why we are no longer satisfied with the minimal requirements for making a valid sacrament. Sacramental theology for the last half century has emphasised the power of the sacramental sign to lead us into the divine mystery. So we are encouraged to baptise by immersion or at least pour water abundantly; we smear oil liberally on the forehead, not just dab it from a moist ball of cotton wool; we are encouraged to use real bread that can be broken and shared at the altar and receive communion from the common cup. These sacramental signs are windows which open the vista of God’s love. By making them well, we have clean windows which do not obscure the view beyond. Vatican II encourages us to recognise that Christ is present at Mass not only in the consecrated bread and cup, but also in the assembly of the Church, in the word proclaimed and in the ordained minister. Now these too are part of a sacramental reality – a real assembly of the faithful, not photos taped to the pews; the word proclaimed viva voce from mouth to ear, not something which emerges electronically from a speaker; the pastoral human presence of the priest among the people of God. Obviously in lockdown, it is precisely these sacramental signs which have been impossible. Pictures on screen of the liturgy and its sacramental signs might be the best we can do and might remind people of a reality we cannot access for the present. But it cannot be a permanent way forward for Christian people in an electronic age, no matter how much our identity, attitudes and relationships are shaped by social media. Mass on screen entangles us in a double bind. Sacramental signs are received in faith; they mean something in a community of faith. What is it doing to take these, our most sacred rites, and open them to the public gaze of the hoi polloi ? I have the same reaction when a Corpus Christi procession with the monstrance goes through the shopping mall of a secular city. Evangelisation invites people into the sacred mystery; it does not instrumentalise it. On the other hand, Mass on screen privatises what is meant to be a corporate act when each person in their lounge room is encouraged to make a ‘spiritual communion’. This devotional prayer might be spiritually helpful, but it has little to do with actual sacramental communion. To maintain that it was common Catholic practice until the 20 th century to attend Mass and not receive the sacrament is hardly an argument; it merely confirms that Mass on screen normalises a regression to an outmoded theology and practice. Far better, in my view, to fast from the Eucharist together and stir up a deep yearning for what we have lost, than to persuade ourselves that we can do something just as good in our hearts. Pope Francis, who has been celebrating live- streamed Mass, remarked that this is the Church of a difficult situation… the ideal of the Church is always with the people and with the sacraments – always! … Be careful not to virtualise the Church, to virtualise the sacraments, to virtualise the People of God. The Church, the sacraments, the People of God are concrete. A WAY FORWARD FOR MEDIA AND LITURGY Live-streamed Masses provide important connections in extraordinary circumstances, not only in pandemic lockdown, but also for those who are not able to be present (the sick and infirm, family overseas) or where isolated communities do not have access to the church community. But they do not offer a regular alternative means for liturgical participation. Live-streamed Mass is always preferable to Mass that is recorded and broadcast later or made available ‘on demand’. This is because it is a real-time connection to an actual liturgical event. I have long had serious issues with Mass for You at Home , Australia’s longest running religious television program (established in 1971). To make this program, three Masses are celebrated back to back in a television studio, months before the broadcast date. How is this the proper context for celebrating Eucharist: in a studio with camera operators and a ‘show congregation’, doing Christmas-Epiphany Masses one after another in August? The German bishops as long ago as 1989 and the USA bishops in 1996 were both very negative about these kinds of arrangements, insisting on a single Mass with a living congregation celebrated on the correct liturgical day in a church. Perhaps our experience with new technology and live streaming can put this program to rest once and for all in favour of something better.