We thought it timely to re-publicise the following. It's the beautifully inspiring "foreword" (provided in full below) written by His Grace The Most Rev. Malcolm McMahon OP, ninth Archbishop of Liverpool, in 2010 (when he was still Bishop of Nottingham), for a lay missal – Missale – produced by his fellow Dominicans, for use at Mass in the Ordinary Form (Novus Ordo - aka The Mass of Paul VI) celebrated in Latin at Holy Cross Priory, Leicester.
We say "re-publicise" only in the sense of acknowledging that it was the estimable blog of Fr Simon Henry – Offerimus Tibi Domine – which originally heralded (in 2011) the fine words of His Grace which were penned a year earlier, a full four years before he was appointed at Liverpool and back when there were still three years of H.H. Pope Benedict's XVI's papacy remaining.
• Incidentally, His Grace, only last weekend (July 19th) fulfilled his archdiocesan visitation to Fr Henry's parish (St Catherine Labouré, Farington, one of only three locations in the Archdiocese of Liverpool to provide Sunday Mass in the Extraordinary Form, and the only one to do so as an official "parish Mass", embedded as part of its regular timetable, alongside Masses in the Ordinary Form as envisaged by Pope Benedict XVI's 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum; a report and images of His Grace's time at Farington can be read on Fr Henry's blog here).
Anyway, back to the aforementioned introduction to the Leicester Dominican Lay Missal written by the then Bishop McMahon.
In clear, uplifting, unambiguous and quite economic language, the reader was swiftly introduced to the subject of Mass prior to the Second Vatican Council. Our future Archbishop then not only went on to write about the use of Latin and vernacular, but also touched on key subjects like Gregorian Chant, the Mystery of the Mass, and the modern reality that the celebrating priest, not the Lord, has inevitably become the focus for the gaze of the faithful attending the Ordinary Form of Mass. This is undeniable. Wisely making great use of the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI on liturgical matters, His Grace shone a particular highlight on the scandalously overlooked post synodal exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis – which was then only three years old but had already well become a dead letter for most of the Catholic world.
We note that it will be 10 years this autumn since the groundwork was laid for that stirring document (i.e. at the October 2005 Extraordinary Synod, just six months after Pope Benedict was elevated to the See of St Peter), ahead of its publication 15 months later in February 2007. Of course, we know we have another Synod looming in October of this year. Somehow it is doubtful that we will enjoy a subsequent exhortation to the worldwide Church as beautiful as Sacramentum Caritatis.
How times change.
Anyway, without further comment, we simply offer His Grace's words here for a combination of reasons. Firstly, in light of, and to add to, our previous posts in this series "Searching for the Archbishop..." (the links to each instalment we provide at the bottom). Also, to highlight the forthcoming 10th anniversary of the 2005 Synod (which many regarded as the formal sanctioning of what had already become known as the "Reform of the Reform"). Not least, finally, to evidently underscore His Grace's clearly held and high regard for the liturgical traditions of the Church.
The two page grabs enclosed below should enlarge, upon clicking-open, into easily readable text. If not, the text is presented in free-form further below.
FOREWORD BY RT REV MALCOLM McMAHON, O.P.
Bishop of Nottingham
When I was a boy most people went to Mass with a missal in their hands, or devotional books like The Treasury of the Sacred Heart, which helped them to follow the Mass and to participate in it. There was a general trend in those days, going back to Pope St Pius X (d. 1914), urging the faithful to ‘participate actively’ in the Mass. In the 1960s, the Second Vatican Council (or Vatican II) took up and continued the same theme.
Back then, of course, Mass was in Latin. People used their missals to understand more deeply the prayers of the Mass, and they also knew how to sing in Latin. At the very least Latin is as important for our culture and worship as Hebrew is for the Jewish people. Since Vatican II, Mass in the vernacular language (English in our case) has become widespread, but it began as, and remains, a concession. Vatican II envisaged that the Mass would ordinarily be celebrated in Latin, and it stressed the need for the faithful to be able to say or sing together in Latin the parts of the Mass which pertain to them, and it commended the use of Gregorian chant, saying that it should be given pride of place in liturgical functions.
More recently, in the autumn of 2005, bishops from around the world gathered in Rome for an Extraordinary Synod to mark the end of the Year of the Eucharist. The bishops put a series of suggestions to Pope Benedict, one of which proposed that Mass at international gatherings should be in Latin, and ‘that the possibility of educating the faithful in this way [should] not be overlooked.’ The pope responded with his exhortation Sacramentum caritatis in 2007 in which he endorsed this particular proposition in its entirety. Many of our parishes are fortunate to be able to welcome Catholics from all over the globe and from a wide range of language groups, making Mass often a truly international gathering which manifests the catholicity of our Church. Many of our parishioners are fortunate enough to be able to travel abroad, going to Mass at internationalgatherings. On these occasions the catholic, i.e. universal, nature of the Church becomes especially apparent, and it is most appropriate to celebrate this by the use of Latin, the official and universal language in the Western Church, and to sing our timeless heritage of Gregorian chant.
It is a mistake to assume that the Mass should be translated into simple English, because the Mass never is and never can be fully understood. Even a translation should give us a glimpse of the unsearchable beauty of God. The Mass is a mystery whose depths we can never plumb, whose treasures we can never exhaust, all the while drawing more riches and grace for us. Pope Benedict reminds us that it is God’s gift and God’s work, or it is nothing at all. To emphasize the central position of Christ in the Mass, the Pope asks us to ‘turn towards the Lord’, Conversi ad Dominum – the ancient call to prayer in the early Church:
‘The idea that the priest and people should stare at one another during prayer was born only in modern Christianity, and is completely alien to the ancient Church. The priest and people most certainly do not pray one to the other, but to the one Lord. Therefore, they stare in the same direction during prayer: either towards the east as a cosmic symbol of the Lord whocomes, or, where this is not possible, towards the image of Christ in the apse, towards a crucifix, or simply towards the heavens, as our Lord Himself did in his priestly prayer the night before His Passion (cf. John 17.1). In the meantime the proposal made by me... is fortunately becoming more andmore common: rather than proceeding with further transformations, simply to place the crucifix at the centre of the altar, which both priest and the faithful can face and be led in this way towards the Lord, whom everyone addresses in prayer together.’
The image of our crucified Lord on the altar does not obstruct the priest from the sight of the faithful, for they are not to look to the celebrant at that point in the Mass. The priest is not more important than the Lord; we are to turn our gaze towards the Lord. These are norms which should become widespread if we are to worship more in keeping with the mind of the Church, and expressed by Vatican II. Pope Benedict adds,
‘The Eucharistic celebration is enhanced when priests and liturgical leaders are committed to making known the current liturgical texts and norms. Perhaps we take it for granted that our ecclesial communities already know and appreciate these resources, but this is not always the case. These texts contain riches which have preserved and expressed the faith and experience of the People of God over its two thousand year history.’ (Sacramentum caritatis, 40)
For the faithful to participate actively at Mass, as has been mandated by successive popes as well as the Second Vatican Council, they must be familiar with the texts and chants. It is for this end that this book has been produced, and I warmly commend it.
Rt Rev Malcolm McMahon, O.P.
Memorial of St Scholastica, 2010
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Previous posts in our series "Searching for the Archbishop..."
(1) - Re: Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King - Midnight (Novus Ordo) Mass (Nativity of the Lord) 2014: Notes #1
