End liturgolatry, embrace charity

By Jacob Marangattu

Bhopal, July 30, 2022: In the encyclical, Ad Petri Cathedram of 1959, Pope John XXIII said, “But the common saying, expressed in various ways and attributed to various authors, must be recalled with approval: in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity” (n. 72, emphasis added). Faced with the current unhealthy situation in the Syro-Malabar Church, what the writer feels to advice is ‘end liturgolatry and embrace charity’.

By the word, liturgolatry, a neologism that I propose, I mean making liturgy an idol. One has to seriously doubt whether, unknowingly and unintentionally, we are not making liturgy an idol.

For the points of contention the ongoing liturgical feud in the Syro-Malabar Church is centred on one point, the orientation of the priest during the celebration of the Holy Qurbana. The Synodal way of celebrating the Holy Qurbana makes for orientation of the celebrant towards the people for about 60 percent of the celebration time, that is, from the beginning of the Holy Qurbana upto the beginning of the Anaphora and the post-communion service.

It requires the celebrant to turn to the altar during the anaphora part of the Holy Qurbana. However, as is known through media, a great majority of the priests of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly – and previously priests from a few other dioceses also – insist that the entire liturgy be celebrated facing the people.

The above question of orientation of the celebrant alone is the point of contest. The Qurbana text is the same, the faith is the same, the Eucharist is the same, and the liturgical calendar is the same.

Now, in such a divided context, the Syro-Malabar hierarchy insists that all priests, in all her churches and chapels, do the worship in the uniform format prescribed by it.

It would, indeed, be fine if such a time comes when the Syro-Malabar Church, universally, has a uniform liturgical celebration so that any faithful anywhere, any priest anywhere, knows how to celebrate the Qurbana without confusion and that everyone learns the rituals as well as the worded – prayers.

In fact, that is the situation with the Latin Church. As far as the faithful or an outsider is concerned, the Latin Church has a uniform rite of celebration. But when one enters into the dynamism of the celebration, one will notice that the celebrant in the Latin liturgy, within a broad uniform mode, enjoys sufficient freedom for adaptation and creative prayers to suit the particular context of the celebration.

Personally speaking, I am perfectly happy with the Synodal way of celebrating on three counts. First, it allows for both orientations, a rare opportunity which all other churches miss, facing the people and facing the altar. Secondly, the Synodal form contains and exhibits mystery dimensions in liturgical celebration.

Such a kind of mystery, I find, is necessary for our contact with the divine. Faith is not a reality that is fully exposed. Faith enters only where reason lacks explanation, where things are not so obvious in themselves. If everything is obvious, the question of faith doesn’t arise at all. The divine and the transcendent world do not entirely conform to our comprehension. Hence, the rites, orientation, and prayers that communicate a mystery dimension are appealing to the faith vision of this writer.

Thirdly, by accepting the Synodal model, one satisfies the question of obedience to authority.

But, here is the crucial point. The very same fact that the divine is not entirely comprehensible – that it is mysterious and transcendent – calls into question some of the stand points of the Hierarchical church. Should we petrify the entire liturgical action as if the rites are written on stones? Does not the faith allow for our emotional participation as well? Ironically, the hard positions adopted, are they not also part of emotional responses?

If some priests are convinced that the liturgical celebration should be facing the people, for that matter, remember that about 98 percent of the Catholics in the world celebrate liturgy facing the people and not the altar. In the Universal Catholic Church 98.5 percent of believers belong to the Latin Church, who celebrate the Mass facing the people.

Only 1.5 percent of the universal Catholic population is constituted by all the other churches put together. Therefore, in such a case, suppose some priests feel to celebrate the liturgy in that way, especially, in contexts where there is great concentration of Latin Catholics, which is the case obtaining in the area of Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese, should we absolutely block them? What are we going to get by enforcing one norm on everyone? What are we going to lose if we allow both orientations in the Church? Will it cause eroding of faith? Will it cause disrespect for the Lord of the Eucharist?

What is the essential of the Eucharist? Is it not charity? What did Jesus institute the Eucharist for? Was it not for forgiveness of sin? And what is sin? As I understand, sin, in ultimate analysis, is violation of charity: charity to God, to fellow human beings, to the nature, and to oneself.

I again say, a universally accepted uniform celebration of Holy Qurbana will look nice. But what are we going to achieve out of that? Is it not a false pride and a fake sense of prestige that we have a uniform celebration? A false pride that satisfies our ego?

Instead, what are we going to lose by allowing for both orientations in the church? Yes, it will expose the scandal that we are a divided Church. We cannot put our heads and hearts together even on the very crucial matter of Eucharist, the sacrament of unity and thansksging. Yes, then, I will say, let it be a reminder for ourselves of our woundedness, our humanity, the need for constant repentance. Let it be a lesson that declares to us that there is a long way to go to achieve spiritual maturity and not simply bask in the glory of St. Thomas, Apostle.

Yes, let us be sincere in front of the Lord. And in the long run, let the spirit win over us towards a unified celebration. Till then let us humbly admit that we are divided.

But here again we have to consider another point. Why are we divided? The very basic reason is that we can simply afford to it. There is no external threat to us. The people, among whom we live, the Hindus and the Muslims, are good to us. They don’t disturb our peace. The political parties are good to us. Our own laity is obedient to us.

Secondly, the Church is financially stable and institutionally influential. Its voice is heard in society. Therefore it has too much energy, which is not channelized properly and timely. Little children are always engaged in play, for they need to spend their extra energy. Here the Church is simply accumulating energy in every way, wealth, health, influence, and command over her followers. The totality of this energy, to a great extent, is getting accumulated in the Church.

On the other hand, the Church is keeping herself insulated from the social problems affecting the people generally and her own members particularly.

Look around, and see the sufferings of society: the nationwide atrocities to women and children, the drug menace, the dowry trap, the love-jihad, huge number of young Christian men remaining unmarred, competitive educational market where the poor Christians have no entry, enormous cost of medical treatment, Christian youngsters migrating to foreign countries leaving their elderly desperate and losing their landed property causing population imbalance, the agonies of the lonely elderly people, loan traps, the ecological problems, the eco-sensitive areas and the people inhabiting there, changing pattern of climate and related problems, the unequal treatment to tribals, and a myriad more tragedies.

What is the Church doing in all these? Yes, it is doing some good in almost all these. The Church is sensitive to the sufferings of the people. But it can do more; it should do enormously more with all its infrastructure, appealing power and moral authority. In the absence of such concerted efforts on all fronts, the high amount of its unused energy is pushing the cork up and it is bursting out through liturgical fights, for this is an easy way of letting out the pent –up energy. We conveniently forget that the fence itself is causing the destruction of the field.

Hence, let the entire Church, the bishops, priests and the laity be more sensitive to the problems that the common man/woman faces and then they will understand that what is more important is neither the East nor the West, but hearts that are turned to everywhere and everybody in charity.

Let’s remember that man is not for liturgy, but liturgy is for man.

(Father Jacob Marangattu, a member of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, teaches in Samanvaya Theologate, Bhopal)