Adrienne's Corner

More on Liturgy

****Often comments need to be put on the front page. This is one such instance. My friend Joe, who resides at Orthodox Christian Musings, has some additions to what Father Jay Scott Newman had written in his article that I posted yesterday.

****I have a particular soft spot for the Orthodox since we live two doors away from a beautiful Orthodox Church (pictured at right as viewed from my back deck.) It has been my fervent prayer for quite some time that a reconciliation between our two great faith groups (I just can't say the word community), would be a reality that I will live to see. For one thing they eat waaaaay better than we do and their music is sublime.

****I agree with everything Joe has added except for just a few points. Although our delightful priest at the Eastern Rite Church in the Spokane Valley sports a beard and looks quite smashing, I simply cannot imagine every priest with a beard. Let's just say if he is not challenged in the hair growing department and looks ok in a beard, then I'm all for it.

****Also in number eight is the call to "one Mass per altar on any given liturgical day." While I understand the liturgical reason for this I think the logistics would not be worth the trouble.

from the combox:

****I think that Fr. Newman's liturgical sensibilities are spot on. I would add a few more recommendations:

1. Turn the priest around so that he is facing the right direction, not the people.
2. Get rid of musical instruments altogether and sing the whole Mass in Gregorian Chant (English translations if need be).
3. Clergy should wear beards as a sign of their apostolic and Christ-given authority and should normally wear cassocks under their vestments, even outside of liturgy.
4. Forbid communion in the hand.
5. Forbid Lay Eucharistic Ministers. Only a Bishop, Priest, or Deacon should touch the Holy Bread or the Holy Chalice. If there are not two clergy members to distribute both the body and blood, then have the priest distribute both by intinction. Also, along with male-only altar servers, it should be canon law that women are never to be in the altar area for any reason. For us in the East, this is easy since we have an iconostasis separating the altar from the rest of the Church. But perhaps reinstituting communion rails would do the trick.
6. Institute the practice (borrowing from the east) of using a blessing cross to give the final blessing. At the conclusion of the Liturgy, have the people come to the front to kiss the cross and the priest's hand. Institute chanting by the cantors while people are lining up and going forward.
7. During the distribution of communion, forbid any hymn or song that is not about Holy Communion or receiving Christ in some real sense.
8. Reinstitute the other prayer services of the Church such as Matins and Vespers. Ban the Saturday evening Liturgy and replace it with Vespers. Also, offer only one Mass per altar on any given liturgical day. If everyone can't fit into the church, then build a bigger one.
9. Ban all children's liturgies and children's sermons.
10. Institute the forthcoming new English translation of the Mass as soon as possible and as completely as possible.
11. Incense, Incense, Incense! Require by Canon Law that incense be used at EVERY liturgy.

Father William Eugene O'Brien, Jr.
Saints Cyril & Methodius Byzantine Catholic Church in Spokane

Now that's one smashing beard!