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PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

LITURGICAL DAY

HELD AT ,

ST. BENEDICT’S ABBEY

Atchison, Kansas

December 10, 1941



i

.

*



PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

LITURGICAL DAY

HELD AT

ST. BENEDICT’S ABBEY

Atchison, Kansas

December 10, 1941



Imprimi potest:

+ Martinus Veth, O.S.B.
Atchison, Kansas

die 4 Januarii, 1942.

Nihil Obstat:

+ Martinus Veth, O.S.B.
,
Censor Librorum

die 4 Januarii, 1942.

Imprimatur

:

+ Paulus C. Schulte, S.T.D.
Episcopus Leavenworthiensis

Kansas City, Kansas

die 10 Januarii, 1942.



FOREWORD
By the Right Reverend Martin Veth, O.S.B.

Abbot, St. Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, Kans.

I regret deeply that it was not my privilege to be present with

my community for the first liturgical day held in Kansas. For

many months I had looked forward prayerfully to this day as a

means in God’s hand to produce great good among our people.

As Father Ellard has so justly pointed out, the Movement is in-

evitable. It can be opposed. It is being opposed in many ways.

But it cannot be stopped, for it is God’s own will, made known to

us by the last five popes.

I hope that every priest who was in Atchison on December io,

left with the feeling that he is destined to play an important role

in the service of Mother Church in restoring active participation

to our laity in our official worship. In a sense the need is greater

than ever today. We must expend all efforts to unite our Church

as a tremendously large throng chanting God’s praises, humbly en-

deavoring to make up for the millions of voices ruthlessly stilled

in other lands.

I made it one of my first duties when permitted by the doctors

to return home to read over carefully the manuscripts of the papers

given on the liturgical day. It pleases me to be able to give this

word of introduction to their printed form, and to take this occa-

sion to thank the priests who came from great distances and at

personal sacrifice to help in this important work.

I am happy in the knowledge that our community has taken this

lead in fostering a more intense prayer life among our people through

an appeal to the men ordained to guide and instruct. As stated

in my telegram to the assembled participants on the day itself,

I was with you in spirit by the bond of the same Sacrifice and com-

mon prayer.

God has manifestly blessed this initial undertaking. Many favor-

able reports have reached me from widely different sources. May the

work continue with the same blessing of Almighty God.

Floreat. Crescat.

+ Martin, O.S.B.,
Abbot.



Address of Welcome

By the Most Reverend Paul C. Schulte, S.T.D.

Bishop of Leavenworth

(Condensed

)

My Fellow Bishops of Kansas,
Right Reverend and Reverend Fathers,

It affords me a distinct pleasure to be with you today as the Bishop
of the host diocese for the first Liturgical Day celebrated in our
State. I know that those from outside our diocese already realize

perfectly well that they are cordially welcome. I am indeed happy
that this sacred work, long fostered by the Holy See, as we shall

soon hear from Father KHard, is coming to the consciousness of

the priests of Kansas.

The Liturgical Movement calls upon us all for a spirit of deep

enthusiasm for the worship of Mother Church. This spirit has

been manifested in the liturgical meetings held last fall in Chicago,

and a month ago in St. Paul. It is our hope that in our own humble

way something of the same spirit may be born among us today

—

particularly among those who have not been privileged to attend

the national meetings.

But, we are not here to make liturgy. We must guard against
anything that might savor too strongly of a spirit of innovation.

We want quite simply to carry out the wishes of Mother Church,
to the human best of our efforts. With profound regard for the

rubrical and ceremonial directions of the sacred liturgy, we pray

for a deepening of our appreciation of the spirit of the Church’s

worship. . . .

Nothing would please me more than to see the solemn liturgy

of I ogation Days, Corpus Christi processions, and other public

praters of the Church year celebrated in the most festive manner

possible within our diocese of Leavenworth. A number of neigh-
boring parishes could easily unite at centrally chosen churches, and

together beseech God in the chant of the Church on these occa-

sions. We are losing sight of the fact that we depend upon the
blessing of Almighty God for all the goods we enjoy, and that we

are under obligation to worship Him solemnly and as a society,

—

that is, as parishes. We need this public manifestation of faith
and sacred worship. It will bring God’s blessing upon us.

I wish to thank the Fathers of St. Benedict’s Abbey for having

prepared this splendid program. It is in many senses unique among

Liturgical Days celebrated throughout the country. May God

bless our efforts in conferring about the sacred liturgy, and may

the fruits He bestows upon us reach the humblest faithful commit-

ted to our charge.



Why a Liturgical Revival Was Inevitable
By the Reverend Gerald Ellard, S.J.

St. Mary’s College, St. Marys, Kans.

If history does not exactly repeat itself, still historic factors

working in the same way repeatedly produce parallel pictures. And

there are many pages from the Christian past summed up in the

circumstance that today the Catholic bishops and priests of Kan-

sas come to a Benedictine abbey to confer amid world-collapse on

the Catholicism of tomorrow and the day after.

When the history of these times is written, chroniclers will dwell

on the fact that they are characterized by three great prayer-move-

ments. They will speak of the widespread initiation of large groups

of the laity of both sexes into systematic asceticism collectively

centering in what is known as the retreat movement. Again, they

will point out how this age, the world over, has shown a sudden,

deep concern, practical as well as theoretical, in that communion

with God, that apperception of God, known as Catholic mysticism.

Lastly, historians will take pains to record that twentieth-century

Catholicism is endeavoring once more to integrate the laymen and

laywomen into the offices of public worship. Doubtless, too, the

portrait painters of our age will pause a bit to discourse on that

mysterious power possessed by this Church twenty centuries young

to renew its life and reform its institutions by drawing upon fresh

streams of vitality welling strong within her.

“So it has been in each great crisis,” we can well imagine one of

them concluding; “when the forces of the Church seem spent, then

it is she finds new power surging up within her: in the twentieth

century the Church refreshed herself and the crumbling world by

refashioning the pattern of her praying.” Revitalized praying

would seem to be the Church’s secret weapon against the all-out

attacks on her in our day. Here we are concerned with the role,

fresh with a lustre it has not known for ages, that liturgical prayer

is destined to play in the new era.

If we believe that Pope Pius XI was correct in saying, Dec. 12,

1935, (just two days short of six years ago today), “The liturgy is

a very great thing. It is the most important organ of the ordinary

teaching power of the Church,” or agree in seeing with the same

supreme pontiff (Dec. 20, 1928) “an intimate relationship between

Christian worship and the sanctification of souls,” we could argue

that a liturgical revival was sooner or later absolutely inevitable,

unless the Church cared to see the most important organ of her



6

ordinary teaching power wither into atrophy, one of its chief instru-

ments of sanctification permanently blunted. For the present re-

form of Catholic worship seeks to redress the multiple losses that

laymen and laywomen have suffered in the course of time in their

part in our common worship, seeks to lower the wall of separation

that quite literally in some medieval churches to be seen to this day,

and figuratively in all of them, shuts the laity out from actively

sharing in what went on within the holy place where the priestly

mediator stood at the altar.

It was characteristic of Christian worship from the very outset

that it was planned precisely to allow the fullest understanding

on the part of all, the fullest sharing in their respective roles by

ministry and people in their joint association with Christ, the

Priest, their Liturgist. Pagan altars were accessible to the pagan

priests alone; the Jewish Temple did admit lay-worshippers to an

outer-court not far from the altar. But with Christians the altar

itself stood conspicuous and accessible to every last, least Christian,

because in the new priestly race, all had some sharing, priestly or

lay, in the perpetuation of Christ’s priestly ministry in the covenant

of love. St. Paul thanked God that he enjoyed the miraculous

gift of speaking God’s praises in unknown tongues: “Nevertheless,”

he said, “in church I had rather speak five words with my under-
0

standing, so as to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a

tongue I and my hearers do not understand.” (I Cor. xiv, 18)
Now Catholic worship in the West turned from the primitive Greek

to the Latin, when that had become the tongue the common man

understood best. It then took the liturgy of the Western Church

a fairly long period in which to grow and develop, until at Rome

under Pope Gregory I (590-604), it achieved its zenith, so to

speak, the perfect expression of the Latin Christian’s corporate

worship of almighty God. How unfortunate that Gregory lived

in an age of indescribable upheaval, which rendered the realization

of his ideal in worship impossible in any ecumenical manner! Par-

ticular features excepted, the liturgy of the Roman Rite has never

since received such a thorough-going reform and readjustment to

current life' as Gregory gave it then. In one way or another the

layman’s place in the liturgy has become more circumscribed with

every century since Gregory lived, as could be shown in specific

detail, if time permitted such survey.

But instead of tracing the story through the intervening ages,

let us look rather to the great Council of Trent, which in so many

ways is as a foundation of modern Catholic life. Not a few of

those abuses which gave Luther reason for solemnly appealing to



7

this Council, (which, however, he did not attend), were related

to public worship, were associated with the fact that for ages the

layman was being deprived by force of circumstances of an active

and intelligent part in divine worship. All this, it was then hoped,

would be remedied by this great Council.

Indeed Trent planned a complete program of reform of Catholic

public worship. The Council’s solicitude was most in evidence in

all that referred to holy Mass, because, as the Fathers said, “of all

holy things this Sacrifice is the most holy.” In resisting the Pro-

testant demands, the Council deemed it “inadvisable that Mass

should be celebrated everywhere in the vulgar tongue.” Yet on all

having the care of souls it laid the obligation, lest the little ones

ask for bread and there be none to break unto them, to explain fre-

quently during the celebration of the Mass, especially on Sundays

and festival days, . . . some mystery of this most holy Sacrifice.”

If Trent similarly rejected the Reformers’ petition that the en-

tire Mass be said aloud, it did reaffirm “that some things in the

Mass be pronounced in a low tone and others in a loud voice.”

In opposition to the heretical position, Masses at which the priest

alone communicated were held to be valid Masses, yet in crystal-

clear language it affirmed the desirability of having all worshipp’ers

at Mass communicate: “The Holy Council wishes indeed that at

each Mass the faithful who are present should communicate, not

only in spiritual desire, but also by the sacramental partaking of

the Eucharist, that thereby they may derive from this most holy

Sacrifice a more abundant fruit.” The texts of the Missal and the

Breviary were deemed to need correction, mostly in the nature of

excision, and this work, begun at the Council, was then turned

over to the Holy See for completion. In a hundred minor ways

the Council showed its zeal that anything savoring in the least

degree of unworthiness be kept from the public worship of the

Church.

The thorny problem of having only proper music in the churches

was given much more serious consideration than might be judged

from the brevity of this statement: “They [local Ordinaries] shall

also banish from the churches those types of music in which, whether

by the organ or in the singing, there is mixed up anything unbecom-

ing, ... so that the house of God may be truly a house of prayer.”

Indeed, many a bishop at the Council may have had painful experi-

ence of the force of that saying, that more people were sung into

Protestantism than argued into it. As early as 1523, in his Form for

Mass and Communion, Luther had stressed the desirability of ver-

nacular singing: “I would wish among us to have as much as pos-



8

sible in the vernacular what the people sing at Mass.” Within

the year Luther had contributed no less than twenty of his own

compositions to this musical side of his revolt, and after Eine feste

Burg had won its sensational reputation, religious rebels in non-

German lands began to sweep people into their conventicles by

affording them the chance to sing at divine service. Small wonder

that the Fathers of Trent, with all this before their very eyes,

wished to purge away the corruption that had overlaid the Church’s

once so popular planesong. This once restored to the people,

they would be saved the sad choice of active participation in un-

orthodox worship, or mute and silent worship in the Church of

Rome.

Vigorously the Holy See set its hand to the carrying through of

this worship-reform. In Italy and in the reconquered parts of

the Germanies, the restoration of Holy Communion was making

the most gratifying progress. Naturally the new liturgical texts

were a primary concern: these began to appear within five years

after the Council’s close, the Breviary in 1568, the Missal in 1570,

the Pontifical in 1596, and the Ritual in 1614.

But as early as Oct. 1, 1567, Rome had seen itself forced to con-

demn some doctrinal errors of Michael du Bay, which meant that

the Church was already engaged in a second gigantic struggle,

this one destined to last two full centuries, a movement we call

Jansenism, and which gives in a word the reason why the long-

planned reforms of worship suffered yet another long delay.

That movements even the most excellent from every point of

view have their appointed day, and must await their time, would

seem to be a moral of this liturgical revival. At least there could

be no liturgical revival while Jansenism held the field. Scarcely

was that ultra-rigorist movement born in the Low Countries, when

it found such shelter in influential quarters that it could maintain

itself, despite repeated condemnations, for two hundred years.

It infected practically all of Christendom that had not gone into

Protestantism. The Bourbon kings of France, its chief defenders,

were linked in such close ties of blood and policy with the royal

houses of Spain and Portugal, the dependent duchies of Italy, and

the imperial house of Austria, that this combination of princes, who

had the appointment of bishoprics in their hands, made all effec-

tive reform from the side of Rome impossible.

What was far worse was that this ‘holier than the Church’ Jansen-

ist party gradually developed its own baleful and erroneous ‘re-

form’ of worship. In direct opposition to Tridentine legislation

and Roman decrees, the French dioceses, after the model of Paris,



9

began to abandon the Roman Breviary and Missal, even Pon-

tifical and Ritual. From 1680 until well into the nineteenth cen-

tury there were in France alone no less than eighty of these local

‘Rites’, and many of them tinctured with Jansenist tendencies.

In France itself the jansenists at least kept the Latin tongue in

their multiple liturgies, although they talked continually about

turning these into the vernacular. As a Roman reaction against

this proposal it became a matter of excommunication to translate

any of the liturgical prayers into the vernacular. This prohibition

lasted until the time of Leo XIII, and is the reason why our grand-

fathers and even fathers did not have pocket missals, but the lay-

man’s Ersatz, The Key of Heaven, to use at Mass.

Excommunication or not, princes were found in the Germanies

and in Italy, then mostly under foreign domination, defiant enough

and strong enough to get the Mass celebrated in many places in

the vernacular. Nor was it just a question of what language was

to be used: "Jansenism poisoned,” it is a French historian we are

quoting, "every source of Catholic piety, and especially the liturgy.”

The Jansenist attack on Holy Communion is well known. Not

so well known are numerous other matters touching public worship

that the Church had to condemn even in Italy. Jansenists solemn-

ly decreed that Masses lacked their essence if the worshippers

present did not communicate; that the priest, or donor, could not

direct the application of the fruits of the Mass; that there should

be only one altar in a church; that relics or flowers were not to be

placed on the altar; that there must be vernacular liturgy with

loud praying, and the like.

It was not hidden from the Church that there was both deep

religious force and wide popular appeal in some aspects of the

liturgical program proposed by the Protestants in the sixteenth

century, and by the Jansenists in the seventeenth and eighteenth.

But in the threat of such widespread apostasy, the Church had

first to safeguard her pearl of great price, the orthodox faith, and

then, when the danger was past, she was free to carry out the re-

forms she herself had long planned. “The Church has to defeat

her foes,” as John Henry Newman used to say, "and then she can

divide the spoils.” True and balanced liturgical reforms could

come only after Jansenism had been routed. Napoleon, with no

intention of doing the Church a service, restored to her the liberty

of free appointment to bishoprics, and with that the turning of

the tide was close at hand.

To be a Catholic is to live in a lofty dwelling which, under the

Hand of the Divine Architect, is still abuilding. As we go about



10

our daily tasks in the warmth and shelter of the home of the faith,

we can witness across the years the growth of the design being silent-

ly worked out above us. In this matter of carrying into execution

the worship reforms planned at Trent the first big step was taken

by a young French secular priest, Prosper Gueranger, who had “dis-

covered” the Roman Missal and Breviary and was struck with

their superiority over those assigned him by diocesan authorities.

Even before he became a Benedictine, Gueranger was crusading

for the reintroduction into France of the abandoned books of the

Roman Rite. From 1830 to 1840 his campaign was by means of

magazine articles, from 1840 to 1851 it took the form of the state-

ly volumes of Institutions Liturgiques. So cogent were these writ-

ings that bishop after bishop silently set aside the local liturgies,

and took up this prayer “with the Roman heart.” This preliminary

phase of the work was completed in 1875, when Orleans was the

last to suppress the Jansenist local liturgy.

But even a few years before that date, Pope Pius IX had sum-

moned the bishops of the world to meet in the Vatican Council.

The place that worship reforms occupied in his plans is indicated

by the Bull of summons: “In this Ecumenical Council all those

things are to be accurately examined, weighed and decreed, which

in times so troubled as these concern the greater glory of God,

the integrity of the faith, the propriety of divine worship . . .”

The unfinished business of Trent was thus placed second only to

the purity of the faith in the program as planned for the Council.

But, alas for human planning, even on the part of the Holy See!

Rome was then being held against the Garibaldi forces, we will

recall, by a French garrison, and the outbreak of the Franco-

Prussian War soon led to the recall of this garrison. Thereupon, the

Vatican Council was prorogued, without the Commission on Litur-

gy (as far as I know) even making a report.

What the Council could not do, the papacy resolved not to leave

undone. Even as a disillusioned old man and prisoner in the Vati-

can, Pius IX tried to push the worship reforms, but his efforts only

served to bring out that a long and difficult process of textual re-

construction must precede the reintroduction of popular planesong.

Leo XIII, as a bishop, had attended the Vatican Council, and

after his elevation to the Throne of Peter devoted no little effort

to what he called “the hoped-for betterment of divine worship.”

While waiting impatiently for the restored texts of the planesong,

he reissued (1884) the existing regulations on figured music. Again,

since Jansenism was dead at last, Leo removed the restriction

against the layman’s use of liturgical prayers, in vernacular trans-



11

lation (1897). Lastly, 1902, with a view of restoring "the spec-

tacle of Christian brotherhood and social equality, when men of

all conditions, gentle and simple, rich and poor, gather around

the holy altar, all sharing alike in the Heavenly Banquet,” he ex-

pressed the purpose, "The chief aim of our efforts must be that the

frequent reception of the Eucharist be widely revived among

Catholic peoples.” (Mirae caritatis) Let us note the steps: active

participation by joint singing, by the use of the liturgical text, by

communicating together. ^

So Leo sowed the seed at the threshold of this century. At that

time (1902), the men known later as Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius

XI and Pius XII were all engaged under Leo, respectively as Car-

dinal Patriarch of Venice, a minor prelate in the administration

of the Vatican, an assistant librarian in the Ambrosian at Milan,

and a young priest engaged as copyist in the office of the Congrega-

tion of Extraordinary Affairs. Each in turn has since entered into

the field of Leo’s sowing, and while themselves continuing the sow-

ing, each has bid us look forward for great things in the renewal

of the Christian spirit drawn from this foremost and indispensable

font, the active participation of the people in the Church’s public

worship.

“Great deeds require time,” in Newman’s sobering phrase, and

no one could reasonably expect that the losses of centuries could

be made up over night. Very shortly before he became pope,

Cardinal Pacelli clearly hinted that the great bulk of the work is

still ahead of us: “Once the people have discovered that they are

to go forward along the royal way of public prayer ...” he said.

That discovery must be made by priests before the laity can take

a single step along the royal way of public prayer. But it would

be false to suggest that a good beginning is not being made. A

critical non-Catholic observer thus sums up the present situation

with fairness, accuracy and insight: “At present we are witness-

ing the beginning of a movement for Liturgical Reform within the

Roman Church, which seems destined to be of great importance.

Its chief aim is the restoration of the primitive balance and integrity

of the Mass, as the essential corporate act of Christian worship;

the whole service being regarded as a single action shared in by

the faithful, presenting their self-oblation to God, and rising to a

climax in their Communion. In churches affected by the Revival,

the full cooperation of all present is assured by distributing trans-

lations of the Sunday Mass. The singing of the Gloria, the Credo

and the Sanctus, and even the Proper of the day, is congregational.”

The liturgical revival in the United States as elsewhere is en-



12

gaged in the “endeavor to bring American Catholics to a fuller

understanding of the liturgy of the Church and to a more intelligent

participation in it,” to quote words recently addressed to it by

Pope Pius XII. The purpose of it all, in the rebuilding of the world,

he who is now Christ’s Vicar phrased with clearness and precision

in a letter to the Hierarchy of Mexico a few years back: “It is pre-

cisely through liturgical prayer and visible cult that the soul easily

rises to God and disposes itself to receive the consolations of the

faith ... It is in the holy worship of the Church that the faithful . . .

truly feel themselves one heart and one soul, and aquire greater

strength.” For that unity and strength needed in our tempestuous

days, let us pray:

O God, who hast appointed that men together worship Thee
in and with and through Thine only Son, our Priest: teach us

that the pattern of Christian praying must needs embody, as

Thy servant Pius said, social praying, to be voiced under
the guidance of pastors, in enacting the solemn functions of

the liturgy. Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Liturgist.
Amen.



Sacrificial Banquet and Mystical Body

By the Very Reverend Patrick Cummins, O.S.B.

Subprior, Conception Abbey, Conception, Mo.

The purpose of the liturgical apostolate is twofold:

1 ) to bring Catholics to a fuller understanding
of the liturgy

of the Church;

2 ) to bring Catholics to a more intelligent participation
in that

liturgy.

This formulation of the liturgical goal I have borrowed from

Cardinal Maglione’s letter to Msgr. Morrison, chairman of the

Chicago liturgical week, the first held in our country. The letter

runs thus:

Right Reverend and dear Monsignor:

The copy of the Proceedings of the National Liturgical Week

which you forwarded recently to the Holy Father was a source

of deep paternal satisfaction to His Holiness who has directed

me to convey to you the expression of his grateful appreci-

ation. He would also have me assure you, dear Monsignor,

of his gratitude for the constant interest which you and your

devoted helpers have manifested in this newest endeavor to

bring American Catholics to a fuller understanding of the

liturgy of the Church and to a more intelligent participation

in it. That the movement is meeting with success is clearly

manifested in the reports and discussion of this first Liturgical

Week.

In testimony of his paternal and benevolent interest and in

pledge of copious heavenly assistance the Sovereign Pontiff

cordially imparts to you, dear Monsignor, and to all those

who have assisted in this great undertaking his paternal

apostolic benediction. . . .

Cardinal Maglione

This formulation of the liturgical goal seems to me providential.

‘Fuller understanding of the liturgy’, ‘more intelligent participa-

tion in the liturgy’ — these phrases point out to the liturgical
apostles the golden road, midway between two extremes.

One extreme is that of exactness that is merely mechanical.

Rubrical slovenliness is, admittedly, a great and widespread evil.

‘Cursed be he who does the work of God negligently’. Who has not

heard that word in retreats and conferences? What is the remedy

for this evil? Exactness, of course. Painstaking, methodical exact-

ness, which leaves no detail neglected. And the answer is correct,

if you add a proviso. Is this mechanical exactness animated by a

fuller understanding of the liturgy, and by more intelligent partici-

pation? Without this proviso, mechanical exactness, in itself a

great good, becomes an enemy of genuine liturgical development.



14

One extreme tends to evoke the opposite extreme. Getting out

of legalistic, mechanistic routine often means getting into an en-

thusiasm that is subjective and devotionalistic. Now enthusiasm

is good, a great good, but under the same proviso. Enthusiasm

must be based on fuller understanding, must result in more intel-

ligent participation. Without this papal proviso, enthusiasm, how-

ever good in itself, tends to defeat its own cause.

With this papal watchword in mind we may congratulate the

framers of this program. The morning papers— I hope the phrase
does not distract you — seem intended to promote deeper under-
standing, the afternoon papers to insure more intelligent participa-

tion. Adopting this program, I proceed to put before you, in the

form of a long syllogism, the purpose and method of my own paper.

Why this Paper?

If i ) the liturgical revival be inevitable;

if 2 ) liturgical revival mean intelligent participation in the liturgy

;

if 3 ) liturgy means, primarily, the sacramental system

;

if 4 ) that participation include congregational singing

;

if 5 ) the mystical body be the liturgical idea now most prominent

among liturgical apostles; and

if 6 ) that idea be used by them in meanings not well discriminated

:

then i ) a theological definition of the mystical body is necessary,

and 2 ) the man selected for that task should have as guide the

best authority, both theological and liturgical.

Now these Ifs are more than Ifs. They are truths. Glance at

your program. Father Ellard has shown you why the liturgical re-

vival is inevitable. There lies my first If. And my second, third,

and fourth Ifs, will, I think you agree, be turned into living realities

by the three speakers you await this afternoon. I certainly could

not wish a better setting for my own paper than that given by the

authors of this program.

That the mystical body is the term now most frequently elaborat-

ed by apostles of the liturgy (my fifth If) hardly needs proof.

Think of our liturgical papers (Orate Fratres, the Magnificat, Altar

and Home
)
or of Catholic papers in general, (America , Common-

weal, Tablet), of the reports from liturgical weeks (Chicago and

St. Paul). The mystical body is fast becoming a war-cry of Catho-

lic revival.

My sixth and last If (the most important of my Ifs) is con-

cerned with a kind of vagueness that hangs about our use of the

term ‘mystical body’. Let me repeat some familiar statements.

“We become members of the mystical body by Baptism.’’ “As



15

members of the mystical body all Christians participate in the

priesthood of Christ.” “The mystical body of Christ is the Church.”

None of these statements is false. Yet the first emphasizes Bap-

tism, the second emphasizes the general Christian priesthood, the

third emphasizes the Church. None of them emphasizes the

Eucharist. And when writers and speakers do make eucharistic

statements about the mystical body, they still sound uncertain in

stating what eucharistic idea they are supposed to emphasize.

How this Paper Proceeds

Deeper understanding of the mystical body must be expressed

first, in metaphorical language, secondly, in scientific language.

And deeper understanding leads to more intelligent participation.

Hence, three steps:

1 ) The mystical body in metaphor;

2 ) the mystical body in the Summa

;

3 ) the mystical body and liturgical participation.

I. The Mystical Body in Metaphor

To enter an ancient city you had to pass, first, through the gate

of the outer wall, secondly, through the gate of the inner wall.

Only beyond and within both walls, the external wall and the in-

ternal wall, could you claim, speaking precisely, to be in the city

itself.

My paper is an attempt to clarify the relation existing between
the sacrificial banquet and the mystical body. The position which

the paper is intended to maintain I find pictured in the image out-

lined above. The outer wall of the city is the visible banquet,

the celebration of Mass as seen externally, accessible to baptized

and unbaptized alike. The inner wall of the city is the invisible

banquet, created by transubstantiation, shared only by those who

have been baptized. The city itself is the mystical body.

So far I have expressed myself metaphorically. And this with

design. Theology is the only habit of mind that is simultaneously

speculative and practical. It begins by being practical, but ends

by being speculative. Faith working by charity is practical. But

faith ends in Beatific Vision, which is speculative. As practical,

Theology expresses itself metaphorically. As speculative, Theology

expresses itself scientifically. The metaphors of Our Lord, which

we call parables, lead to the full theological precision of the Summa.

To show in all its wondrous details how this metaphor of the

city defended by walls grows through the centuries into the eucharis-

tic concept of the mystical body built up by the sacrificial banquet



16

— this were task for a large book. Here and now, we must be con-
tent with a few glimpses.

Our Liturgical Day meets in the second week of Advent. We
await the Savior who is to come. How is He to come? The liturgy

has many responses. I borrow the antiphon of Terce:

Urbs fortitudinis nostrae Sion: Salvator ponetur in ea murus

et antemurale.

The italics are mine. They emphasize the source whence I bor-

rowed my initial metaphor. A city {urbs) defended by an inner
wall {murus) and by an outer wall {antemurale).

What is the name of the city? Sion. Sion, the Church, the
%

mystical body. And of this city the Savior, the expectatio gen-

tium does not disdain to be the wall and the rampart.

These words, speaking historically, are nigh 3000 years old.

Isaias (26,1 ) proclaimed them seven centuries before the Savior

came. But in the mind of God Who inspired them they are eternal-

ly old, hence eternally true, hence also eternally new. Our own

eyes see their fulfilment. The gates of hell rage against mankind

as never before. They shall not prevail. They will suffer defeat

as never before. Every city built by man may be blasted from the

face of the earth. But the walls of the city of God stand firm, the

outer visible wall, and the inner invisible wall. Enter, O people

of God, through the walls into the city. Aperite portas, ut ingredi-

atur gens justa.

II. The Mystical Body in the Summa

After sketching the doctrine, I will quote, first, Innocent III,

who preceded St. Thomas, second, Abbot Vonier, who in our own

days reiterated St. Thomas.

Definition of the Mystical Body

A definition arises by giving, first, the genus, second, the species,

of the thing to be defined. The genus of the mystical body is the

‘res’ of a sacrament. Its species is ‘eucharistic’. Hence the

‘eucharistic res’ is the theological definition of the mystical body.

Two questions arise at once. First, where does St. Thomas give

this definition? Second, what does the definition mean?

The first question is easily answered. In his treatise on the

Eucharist (III, qq. 73-83 ), St. Thomas has frequent passages which

contain this definition. Let one example suffice for many. “In

this sacrament we must distinguish two things: first, the sacrament

itself, second, the ‘res’ of the sacrament. Now as was said above



17

[in the preceding article], the ‘res’ of this sacrament is the unity

of the mystical body.
4

’ (Ill, 73, art. 3)

One simple line of thought governs the Summa of St. Thomas,

both as a whole, and in its every part: God, from Whom; God, to

Whom; God, through Whom. God, the Source, from Whom all
creatures come (Pars Prima). God, the Goal, to Whom all crea-
tures go (Pars Secunda). God, the redeeming God-Man, through

Whom all creatures return to God’s home which they had lost
(Pars Tertia).

In that Third Part, we have, first, God Incarnate, living, dying,

rising, ascending; second, God Incarnate, living and working in

His sacramental world, the Church; third, God Incarnate, living

forever as glorified Head of His glorified members.

Again. Studying the sacramental world we find first a three-

fold horizontal distinction. Each sacrament looks back to the In-

carnate God from Whom it comes
;
it looks forward to the Incarnate

God to Whom it goes; it looks at the Incarnate God actually present,

to Whom it here and now unites the recipient.

O sacrum convivium,

in quo Christus sumitur

:

recolitur memoria passionis ejus:

mens impletur gratia

:

et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur.

Alleluia.

We find, in each sacrament, second, a three-fold vertical distinc-

tion, three ascending sacramental levels. The first level is visible.

The second level is invisible but not final. The third level is both

invisible and final.

Look at Baptism as an illustration. The visible level includes every-

thing accessible to the senses: the recipient, the minister, the pour-

ing of the water, the simultaneous pronouncing of the words. The

second level, invisible but not final, is the baptismal character.

It is invisible. The senses do not grasp it. The unbeliever denies

it. The believer does not see it, but believes it. Still, it is not

final. It is an intermediary sacramental level, signified and effect-

ed by the lower external sign, but subordinated to the third level,

which it signifies and produces. That third level, invisible and

final, is sanctifying grace as destructive of original sin by incor-

poration into Christ.

This distinction of three ascending levels St. Thomas finds in

each of the seven sacraments, not merely in those which imprint

a character on the soul. In the Eucharist, the highest and most



18

perfect sacrament, the pre-eminent sacrament, he operates with

this concept more frequently and more intimately than anywhere

else. Now since this concept of the Eucharist is the presupposi-

tion and foundation of the definition he assigns to the mystical

body, and since, secondly, this sacramental, eucharistic concept

is practically inoperative in modern theologico-liturgical literature,

I ask your patience while I attempt to clarify the three essential

terms in this terminology:

c
)

res tantum

b ) res et sacramentum

a
)

sacramentum tantum.

The lowest of the three levels, the three plateaus, to be found in

each sacrament, is called by St. Thomas the ‘sacramentum tantum’.

The second level, the intermediate plateau, is called ‘res et sacra-

mentum’. The third level, the final plateau, is called ‘res tantum’.

Their interrelations have been noted above in the sacrament of

Baptism. The ‘sacramentum tantum’, the visible form and matter,

signifies and effects the ‘res et sacramentum’. The ‘res tantum’,

the invisible and final level, is signified and effected by the two pre-

ceding levels. Lastly, the ‘res et sacramentum’ both signifies and

is signified. Since it is signified by the lowest level, the visible sign,

it is called ‘res’. Since it signifies the highest level, it is called

‘sacramentum’.

Words of Innocent III

From that phrase concerning which you have inquired, that is,

‘mysterium fidei’, some have thought to derive a proof of their

error, namely, that in the sacrifice of the altar we do not have the

true presence of the body and blood of Christ, but only an image

thereof, or a ‘species’, or a figure. Now that which we receive on

the altar is called by Scripture, now ‘sacramentum’, now ‘mysteri-

um’, now ‘exemplum’. But the error lies in this, that such men,

first, do not rightly understand the words of Scripture, secondly,

do not have proper reverence for the sacraments of God. Such

men misunderstand both the Scripture and the power of God. . . .

But it (the sacrament of the altar) is called ‘mysterium fidei’ be-

cause what therein we believe is one thing, and what we see is

another. What we see are the species of bread and wine, what we

believe is, first, the true presence of the flesh apd blood of Christ,

second, the unity and charity which that presence produces. (D.

414, edit. 15a)

In this sacrament (Eucharist) three (things, elements, levels,

plateaus) are to be carefully (subtiliter) distinguished: first, the

visible form, second, the true presence of the Body, third, the



19

spiritual power. The ‘form’ belongs to the bread and wine, the

true presence to the flesh and blood,. the power is that of unify-

ing charity. The first is called ‘sacramentum et non res’, the second

is called ‘sacramentum et res’, the third is called ‘res et non sacra-

mentum’. But the first is the sacrament (sign and cause) of the

twofold ‘res’, (both of the intermediate ‘res’ and of the final ‘res’ ).

The second is simultaneously sacrament, as related to one (above ),

and ‘res’, as related to one (below). The third is ‘res’ as related

t.o the twofold ‘sacramentum’ (the external visible sign, and tjhe

internal invisible true presence of the body and blood). (D. 415.)

Words of Abbot Vonier

(“A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist”)

Do any of my readers still remember the ancient theological dis-

tinction between the “sacrament,” and the “sacrament and thing,”

and the “thing” which I have explained in a former chapter? (p.254

)

The ancient theologians with St. Thomas have this threefold

division, sacramentum tantum, the sacrament only, sacramentum et

res, the sacrament and the thing, res tantum, the thing only.

The first, sacramentum, is all that we know as the signification,

with its divine power and its commemorative affinities. The ‘sacra-

ment and the thing’ is the spiritual inwardness of the whole sacra-

mental signification and no longer the external symbolism. Thus

in Baptism the character which is distinct from all the other spiri-

tual results of Baptism would be called by St. Thomas sacramen-

tum et res, because baptismal character, an entirely spiritual result

of the external rite, is still a sacramental thing, because in its turn

it is a representation of, and a configurement with, the sacerdotal

office of Christ, as will be said later. ‘Sacrament and thing’ thus

holds a very important position in the old theology. It is a blend-

ing of the internal spiritual reality, res, with signification, sacra-

mentum. Very logically, then, does St. Thomas declare the fact

in the above passage that in the Eucharist ‘sacrament and thing’

is in the external matter itself, because truly the ‘thing’, the spiri-

tual reality, the Body and Blood of Christ, under the appearance

of bread and wine, is also ‘sacrament’ — that is, representative
in a new way of Christ on the cross, when Body and Blood were

separated. St. Thomas admits really a double signification in the

sacraments — at least, in some of them; first, the external thing
signifies; and then the internal, spiritual reality, immediately pro-

duced by the sacrament, has in its turn, the role of representation.

The Eucharist excels, because in it sacramentum et res is not in

the recipient, but in the external signs of bread and wine. Here,



/

20

again, we have a truly sacramental basis for the sacrificial aspect

of the Eucharist.

Coming now to the res — the ‘thing’ — it would not be accurate
reading of the old masters to say that by it is meant grace in general.

What is meant is specific, sacramental grace, such as spiritual re-

generation in Baptism, such as the union of charity in the Eucharist,

when the faithful receive it in communion, (pp. 73-75)

Summary of the Doctrine

The ‘sacramentum tantum’, the external sensible element, con-

sists in the words of consecration pronounced over the bread and

wine. The ‘res et sacramentum’ is the true individual body of

Christ into which the bread has been transubstantiated, and the

true blood of Christ into which the wine has been transubstantiated.

The ‘res tantum’, the special eucharistic grace, is the unity of the

mystical body, produced by the fact that each participant eats

the self-same true body of Christ, or drinks the self-same blood of

Christ.

We may now repeat our definition. The mystical body has as

its genus ‘res sacramenti’. It is not the ‘sacramentum tantum’,

the external visible sign, though this sign is its first sacramental

cause. It is not the ‘res et sacramentum’, the internal invisible

sign, though this sign is its second efficient cause. It is ‘res tan-

tum’, the highest sacramental level, goal and consummation of

the entire sacramental process.

The species of the definition is given in the word ‘eucharistic’.

The mystical body is. speaking properly, found within the Eucha-

rist, the goal and purpose of all the sacraments. Hence the eucha-

ristic res’, the ‘eucharistic thing’, is the precise theological defini-

tion of the mystical body.

III. Mystical Body and Intelligent Participation

The definition just given is profound. Of all liturgical actions,

the sacraments are supreme. Among the sacraments, the Eucharist

is supreme. Of the three elements found in every sacrament, the

‘sacramentum tantum’, the ‘res et sacramentum’, and the ‘res

tantum’, this third element is supreme. Hence the ‘mystical body’

being the ‘res tantum’ of the Eucharist, is, of all definitions of the

mystical body, the most intimate, the most profound.

But is this definition also simple? As it stands, No. As it

stands the definition includes the theological phrase ‘res tantum’.

And that phrase, pregnant with deepest meaning, supposes theologi-



21

cal training in him who would understand. In what sense, then,

does the phrase lead to intelligent participation in the liturgy?

I answer: All definitions of the ‘mystical body’ are theological

expressions of the truth which our Lord teaches, exhaustingly and

inexhaustibly, in the parable of the Vine and the branches. Now

this parable is a eucharistic parable. It is eucharistic, even in its

circumstances. It was divinely suited, as was each of our Lord’s

words, to time, place, and audience. The time was eucharistic

—

after the First Sacrificial Banquet. The place was eucharistic

—

on the road that led from the Banquet to the Agony. The audience

was eucharistic — eleven First Communicants.
The Vine and the branches — that is the definition, divinely

simple, of the mystical body. And this definition is eucharistic.

Eucharistic fullness, eucharistic completeness — that is the Vine
and branches. And that is the mystical body. All this is expressed

by St. Thomas when he identifies the mystical body with the

eucharistic ‘thing’.

The eucharistic truth which this parable enshrines — is it a
conscious possession of our people? I think not. The sacrificial

banquet has, indeed, since the days of Pius X, been steadily grow-

ing into Catholic consciousness. ‘No Mass without Communion’

is a war-cry, not indeed universally followed, but almost universally

understood. But that the sacrificial banquet, the feasting on our

Lord’s body and blood, truly, really, and substantially present,

has for its direct sacramental purpose the upbuilding of the Church,

the mystical body — this idea is not, I think, as yet in possession.
Let us put the question in popular language. In catechism

class, in the pulpit, in the confessional, you are urging your people

to frequent Communion. You appeal to many, many motives:

growth in grace, strength in temptation, good example to household

and parish, gratitude for blessings, anticipation of death, less of

Purgatory, more of Heaven. All well and good. But notice:

All of these formulations are, as they stand, individualistic. None

of them gives the specific, social, corporate, eucharistic, liturgical

reason for daily and frequent Communion. What is this specific,

eucharistic, liturgical reason? The answer is clear. If the special

eucharistic grace, the ‘res tantum’ of the Eucharist, is ‘mankind re-

duced to unity’, then the specific liturgical reason for Communion

is that of building up the Church till she embrace all mankind.

Remaining away from the sacrificial banquet, you remain away

from the only thing that can make you a Catholic, i.e. a branch of

the Vine.

This formula may be varied in many fashions. Why share in



22

the sacrificial banquet as often as I can? Because that is what

you were baptized for. Your baptismal character, insertion into

Christ, is likewise a pledge to participate in Christ’s banquet.

Why? Since the Eucharist is goal and purpose of all the other

sacraments, you cannot receive Baptism without a vow, at least

implicit, to share in the eucharistic banquet. Your baptismal

character is not merely a ticket of admission, it is likewise a promise

to come.

Again, your baptismal character is a share in the priesthood of

Christ. Your share in the priesthood of Christ is passive. It is

not the active share which belongs to the priest who has received

Holy Orders. You cannot transubstantiate the bread and the wine.

But your baptismal character is nevertheless a participation in the

priesthood of Christ. As the priest was ordained to prepare the

banquet, you were baptized in order to eat at the banquet. If you

do not eat, you are failing in your priestly function.

Again, you have surely noticed that the ordained priest not

only prepares the banquet, but that he eats of the banquet before

he feeds others. Even if nobody else eats, he never fails to do so.

He dares not. The Church binds him to eat, under grievous sin.

Why? The priest was baptized before he was ordained. When

he prepares the banquet he thinks of the character he received in

Holy Orders. Wlien he eats he thinks of the character he received

in Baptism. You have the same baptismal character which the

priest has. The end and purpose of the priesthood of Christ, of

the general priesthood and of the special priesthood, is to prepare

the sacrificial banquet. Without this sacrificial banquet, no

growth in the Church as a whole, no growth in you as a branch

in the Vine. ‘He who eats me, he also shall live by me’. (John, 6 158

)

To conclude. The mystical body is the ‘thing’, the eucharistic

‘thing’. One of Chesterton’s finest books is entitled: “The Thing”.

This Thing is hated and loved, because it is ‘like nothing else on

earth’. When he says ‘the Thing’ he means ‘the Church’. When

I say the ‘eucharistic thing’, I too mean the Church. Chesterton’s

Thing is a sacramental thing, a sacramental organism. And the

deepest thing within this sacramental organism is the Eucharistic

Thing.

Urbs fortitudinis nostrae Sion:

Salvator ponetur in ea Murus

et Antemurale :

Aperite portas,

ut ingrediatur gens justa.



Speakers’ Introduction

By the Most Reverend Frank A. Thill, D.D.

Bishop of Concordia

Courage was required to promote this Liturgical Conference in the

midst of war and in the State of Kansas which is predominantly

rural and quite missionary in character. His Excellency, the Bishop

of Leavenworth, under whose patronage we are meeting and the

Benedictine Fathers who have arranged our conferences and wel-

comed us to the hospitality of their Abbey ought to be commended

for their courage. They deserve to be told that they have put

first things first and that they were very definitely thinking with

the Church when they projected this meeting under circumstances

of time and place seemingly so foreign to the spirit of the Sacred

Liturgy.

You can easily validate for yourselves this holding of a liturgical

conference in Kansas at the present time by remembering how

the Church substituted order for chaos and civilization for barbar-

ism in the ages that followed the decline and fall of the Roman

Empire. She made Christian farmers out of the invading savages,

and the civilization that grew and flourished on the wreckage of

the old pagan culture was basically and radically the result of the

liturgy with which she not only sanctified these hordes of wild men

but eventually made them gentle.

Maybe there is even ‘a significance for us here and now in the

fact that the Dark Age of the world’s history was transformed into

the flaming and brilliant medieval Age of Faith pretty largely by

the way of life devised by St. Benedict and practiced in so many

places by his numerous spiritual sons.

The old formula worked wonders in its day and the're is no reason

to fear that it has lost any of its potency or validity. We are the

same, old, savage sinful race of men and only God’s grace can

transform us and keep us from landing squarely hands and feet

in hell.

It is, therefore, more than pleasant for me to present the two

Reverend Gentlemen who are to address this session of the Con-

ference. The Very Reverend Monsignor Martin B. Hellriegel is

known to all of us as a pioneer and an apostle in the Liturgical

Movement that has advanced steadily and become progressively

influential here in the United States during the past 25 years.

His enlightened zeal enabled him to accomplish wonderful things as

the chaplain of the Sisters of the Precious Blood of O’Fallon, Mis-



24

souri. His more recent assignment to a parish in St. Louis, as its

pastor, is giving him the opportunity to make the very interesting

experiment of applying his life’s work in the field of the Sacred

Liturgy to the problems and needs of our Catholic people. In the.

providence of Almighty God his present work may give us a new

formula or a restatement of the old one that will be of tremendous

value not only in urban centers but to our Catholic people who live

on farms and in the rural sections of our country. We of North-

western Kansas are watching his experiments and explorations with

great interest and the hope that he may help us discharge our

pastoral obligations with greater certainty of a more abundant

supernatural success.

The second paper of this session will be presented as a supple-

mentary investigation by the Rev. Dr. Bonaventure Schwinn, O.

S.B., Dean of Theology here in St. Benedict’s Abbey. Father

Schwinn’s approach will be a scientific one with special emphasis

on the fostering of liturgical life in the parish through the sacramen-

tal system. It is not necessary that I comment on his work be-

cause many of you were his companions during student days here

at the Abbey and some of you have sat at his feet as students

and disciples.



Means and Ways of Leading Our Flock to an

Intelligent Participation in the Liturgy

By the Very Reverend Martin Hellriegel

Pastor, Holy Cross Church, St. Louis, Mo.

The subject assigned to me for this afternoon’s General Meeting is

entitled: “Means and ways of leading our flock to an intelligent

participation in the liturgy.” For the sake of clarity I shall divide

this paper into four questions and answers.

I. What happened during the past four centuries?

II. What happened in 1903?

III. What is expected of us priests?

IV. How are we to reach our people?

I. What Happened during the Past Four Centuries?

“I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.”

(Jn. 10: 10) These are the grandest words ever spoken. But not

only spoken, they have been fulfilled. For the purpose of giving

us His life the Son of God came into the world. “Consecrare mun-

dum,” to consecrate (to change, to deify) the world, chants the

Church in her martyrology on Christmas eve.

It is principally through the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,

through the Sacraments, through the Sacramentals, through the

prayers in the breviary, in short, THROUGH THE LITURGY,
that the Lord pours His life into us, .making us grow from tiny

twigs to fruit-laden branches; making us grow from spiritual babes

to perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fulness of Christ.

It is through and in the liturgy that the Man-God sends His re-

deeming, sanctifying life into all who are willing to receive Him,

giving them power to become sons of God and joint heirs of Him-

self, other Christs.

A terrible deformation of the God-willed order commenced four

centuries ago.

1. The 16th century made the start by throwing overboard the

liturgy, i.e.,the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the eucharistic priesthood, near-

ly all of the Sacraments and Sacramentals. It tampered with, and

finally rejected, the life-channels of the Church. And that meant

the beginning of a great drooping and withering.

2. Where the 16th century left off, the 17th began. The life-

stream of the Church being gone, it was but natural that the 17th

century should commit the crime of throwing overboard the Church.



26

3. The following century went a step further. Now that the
Church, the BODY of Christ was done away with, the 18th cen-
tury proceeded to throw the HEAD of this Body, Christ, overboard.

4. Now that Christ, the WAY to the Father, was “out of the
way,” it was inevitable that the 19th century should go still further

and throw the Lord God overboard.

5. The 20th century is completing this terrible job by throwing

man himself overboard through race suicide and wholesale World

War slaughter.

There we are! One following the other: First went the LITUR-

GY, then the CHURCH, then CHRIST, then GOD and finally
MAN. Such is the outcome of the great deformation which began

four centuries ago, a deformation which has affected — let us ad-
mit in all honesty — many of the children of God, many of the
brothers and sisters of Christ, many of the sons and daughters of

the Church. “Vias tuas, Domine, demonstra mihi.” Lord, help

us to get back again on the right road!

II. What Happened in 1903?

All of us must get down on our knees and thank divine Providence

for having given in the year of our Lord 1903 a pathfinder, a great

priest, a prophetic leader in the person of the sainted Pius X who,
when things had reached their lowest ebb, began to inaugurate a

new order, a re-formation, by his powerful “Instaurare omnia in

Christo,” the incorporation of all things into Christ.

Three months after his elevation to the infallible chair of Peter

he sent forth “motu proprio” — moved by the Spirit of the Lord
that rests upon the high-priestly person of the Sovereign Pontiff

—

this clarion call into the world: “Our most ardent desire being that

the true Christian spirit flourish again, it is necessary that the faith-

ful, (people and priests) find this spirit at its primary and indispens-

able source, which is the active participation in the sacred mysteries

and solemn prayers of the Church.” Thanks to the committee

for having put these momentous words on the printed program of

this Liturgical Day. These few words of Pius X are a weighty
pontifical document and must not be read and spoken thought-

lessly. They are the solemn inauguration of a movement back

to the liturgy, back to the very fountains which the 16th century

locked up; back to the life-currents of Him Who came that they

may have life and have it more abundantly.

The sooner we return with our whole mind, our whole heart and

our whole being to the life-imparting liturgy, the sooner, we shall

possess again — not facade Christianity — but 100 per cent Cath-



27

olic life; the sooner we shall come to full life with the Church
and,

through her, to a full life in Christ, and through Him, to
that per-

fect living in God which the Apostle had in mind when he
said:

"Your life is hid with Christ in God.”

Thirty-eight years have elapsed since this greatest of
all move-

ments in the Church’s history has been launched.
It would not

surprise us if our Holy Father in 1943 will write a
new “Quadra-

gesimo anno,” in remembrance of, and as a new impetus
towards

a sincere love for the apostolic work of that
illustrious Pontiff

whose greatness in and for the Church will be more
fully appreci-

ated 50 years hence, and whom we hope to honor before 50
years

have elapsed, as Saint Pius the Great.

III. What is Expected of Us Priests?

We priests are God’s appointed ministers of Christ and dispensers

of the mysteries of God. Our duty is
— so the ordaining bishop

told us — to offer, to preach and to lead. Our work, our acting
(‘agere’) is essentially liturgical. But ‘agere sequitur esse’,

if our

acting is essentially liturgical then our being must also be
essentially

liturgical. True, the reception of the sacrament
of Holy Orders

has given us the liturgical ‘esse’, but it is necessary
to translate this

objective ‘esse’ into a subjective one,
— into an ever growing realiza-

tion of my being a priest, a man of God consecrated by the litur-

gy
— ‘‘Anima sacerdotalis naturaliter liturgica.”

We priests are quite conservative. Which is good. Sometimes,

however, we are so conservative that we become satisfied
with

existing conditions. I think they call this thing
self-complacency.

This false optimism makes us believe that we are doing a
good work

by quickly condemning the efforts of others as
“innovations” when

in reality they are necessary “restorations .
Tike a smoker in a

smoky room we fail to notice how bad the air is, all
the more if

we never had an opportunity to find out what pure
air is like. Or,

we feel so secure about the correctness of the track
on which we

have been moving, that, upon noticing any departure
from our way

of thinking and doing, we immediately cite rubric
‘so and so’ and

canon ‘so and so’ against t,he labors of others
who also love the

Church — without always knowing the real meaning of, and reason
for, the respective rubric and canon.

Let me say here most emphatically that the rubrics
and canons

of the Church are sacred and must be observed
conscientiously.

But I also wish to state most respectfully that
rubrics and canons

are a fence around the garden, and more
important than the fence

is the garden behind the fence. We find people today who are
more



28

disturbed about a seeming injury done to the fence than they are

about the numberless weeds growing freely behind the fence.— in
the garden of the Ecclesia sancta Dei.

There lived a like group of fence-watchers 1900 years ago who

caused a great deal of trouble to Him “who came to give them life

that they may have it in abundance.” Est modus in rebus : The

liturgical movement does not stand for innovations, it stands for a

100 per cent “sentire cum Ecclesia”, and every true promoter of the

liturgical apostolate will also be a truly obedient son of the Church

and of her norms and rules without exception. It’s about time for

thoughtless, destructive criticism to cease! There has been more

than enough since Nov. 22, 1903!

And now let us give our attention to six points which, I think,

we priests should translate into our personal priestly life:

1. A more living realization of the truth that the Church is the

Mystical Body of Christ. The Church is not merely an organiza-

tion,, not merely a perfect society, she is a divine organism of which

Christ is Head, she, the Church, His Body, and we members one of

another. This is not a metaphor but a divine fact.

2. That in this divine organism we priests take a very important

part as offerers
,
preachers and leaders, as ministers of the Christ

who came not to be served but to serve.

3. That the members of this divine organism are Christ’s re-

deemed property, of which a portion has been entrusted to us as to

stewards, and for whom we are responsible before the tribunal of

Christ and His Church.

4. That the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the deepest wellspring

for the life of this divine organism; that consequently we the lead-

ers in this divine organism, must acquire an ever greater under-

standing of, and love for, this “Mystery of the Faith,” celebrating

it at all times with profound reverence as behooves men of God.

We may not act as mechanics and functionaries in the great action

which “through Him and with Him and in Him gives all honor

and glory to God.”

5. That the Missal, with its extension, the breviary, is a priest’s

first and foremost meditation book, composed and proposed to us

by the Church. Daily, before retiring, we should devote some 10-

15 minutes to the reading of the Mass text for the following day.

Our breviary is not only a “duty book for the avoidance of mortal

sin” but is the sacred instrument of the “Ecclesia orans” and the

daily preparation for, and radiation from, the Holy Sacrifice.

The intelligent preparation of the Mass text and the intelligent



29

recitation of the breviary are also the best preparation for our

sermons. Of great importance towards a better appreciation of

the whole sacramental liturgy is a liturgical (not only exegetical)

understanding of the psalms, which are the pulsebeat of the Heart

of Christ and the Songs of the New Sion.

6. That we deliver our best sermons to the flock by the “pie,

attente ac devote” celebration of the life-imparting mysteries of

our Faith, in particular, that of the Holy Sacrifice. A charismatic

offerer at the altar is a magnet that will draw the flock ever closer

to Him “who came that they may have life and have it in abund-

ance.” Qualis rex, talis grex!

IV. How Are We to Reach Our People?

1. Since the holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the Sun and Center in

the life of every Christian, it is our first duty to lead our people

to an active, external and, above all, internal participation in this

sacred banquet in which Christ is eaten, by which His blessed

Passion is made present, by which the inner man is filled with divine

life, and which is the pledge of our future glory.

2. Our great goal is this: to make our flock not merely adorers

of the eucharistic Christ in the tabernacle, but co-offerers with the

immortal Christ who on the parish altar re-enacts with us His

world-redeeming Sacrifice to the glory of God and for our salvation.

3- This thought must — like a golden thread — run through
our Mass-sermons. I say “Mass-sermons”, because the sermon

in connection with Holy Mass should be, not so much a sermon

DURING Mass, as a sermon OF the Mass. In other words,
our sermons must be liturgical, part and parcel of the sacrificial

action, a disposing of the flock towards corporate participation in

the family Sacrifice and Meal.

4. It is absolutely necessary to bring our flock to an intelligent

participation in the Church’s year, the annual re-enactment of the

work of redemption for the glory of God and for the laying of a new

divine ring around our Christ-being. As far as ‘living the Church’s

year’ is concerned, the great majority of our people is positively

below par. We must use pulpit, confessional and school to awaken
and deepen in our people a more concrete living with the sacred

year of the Church.

5. We must restore or, at least, perfect the parish high mass, and

celebrate it not 16 but 60 times a year. We must teach our people

(through sodalities and school ) to sing at least the simple responses

and to receive holy Communion. Says Cardinal Bertram: “The

Sunday Sacrifice without Communion of the faithful is deprived



30

of its loveliest part, namely the fellowship of God’s redeemed

family at the eucharistic family Table.”

6. An intelligent introduction of the “missa recitata”, with a

gradual recitation of the Ordinary in Latin, is a decided step for-

ward, not only toward the upbuilding of social consciousness, not

only toward a deepening of the spiritual life of individual and parish

but also as a bridge over to an active participation by all in the

high Mass. And be it said most emphatically: the high Mass— not
the low Mass — is the ideal way of offering the great Sacrifice of
our redemption.

7. Attempts also must be made to restore vespers, or compline.

No time has been so guilty of liturgical vandalism as our own.

Thirty-five years ago Vespers — the venerable Even Song of the
Church — were sung in many parishes, but where are they today?
Dozens of the finest traditions have simply been cast out. We

have removed “devotion” and often have placed in its stead “emo-

tion.” We have broken with the past, are we going to leave

empty the future?

8. It is time also to blow off the dust from our Ritual and make

use again, at least of some of the 149 blessings which are contained

in this now almost forgotten liturgical book. By the way, if I were

seminary rector I would make every student study the Ritual from

A to Z. It would benefit him much in Latinity and even more in

Liturgy, and both are necessary for the future priest. We are

complaining so much about the divorce that has taken place be-

tween Altar and Home, but fail to say ‘mea culpa’ for having neg-

lected one of the most powerful means of establishing the bond of

union between the two, namely the sacramentals. With my own

eyes I have seen what a European pastor achieved during 9 years

in a parish of 700 souls, most of whom had been ‘red’ at the time of

his installation. We can do the same.

1
.

Conclusion

If we are men of faith; if we become convinced again that the

liturgical treasures of our Church are filled with divine life and

transforming power
;
if we preach again with a conviction that will

make the hearts of our people burn like the hearts of the two disciples

on Easter day; if we lead them to the deep wellspring of life — the
Holy Sacrifice; if we administer ‘fide ac tremore’ the Sacraments

laden with the sanctifying Blood of Christ; if we carry again

—

through the sacramentals — the blessings of the redemption to
home and fields, seeds and fruits, barns and animals, autos and



31

broadcasting stations, we must succeed, we will succeed in the

“Instaurare omnia in Christo”, the setting ALL things into Christ,

by doing that, we are returning to the primary and indispensable

source of the true Christian spirit. There is no other force and source

for Christian reconstruction (and God knows how necessary such

a reconstruction is!) so powerful, so transforming, so upbuilding

as the life-giving liturgy of our glorious Church. It has once be-

fore turned a pagan desert into a Christian garden with flowers and

fruits of martyrs, confessors and virgins. It can do the same today.

And we priests are the dispensers of these re-forming and upbuild-

ing mysteries of God.



Fostering the Liturgical Life Through

the Sacramental System

By the Very Rev. Bonaventure Schwinn, O.S.B.

Subprior, St. Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, Kans.

The subject assigned to me is “Fostering the Liturgical Life in

the Parish Through the Sacramental System.” Most of the terms

in this title are clear enough. But it may be well at the outset

to determine just what is meant by “liturgical life.” St. Thomas

defines life as “that which moves itself.” (Summa Theol. I, 18, i.)

The essence of life is self-activity. But when we talk about the life

that derives from the sacraments, we are not considering life in

the ordinary sense; we are dealing with the supernatural principle

which is commonly called grace. It must be in us as the principle

of our activity, or it is not life; but at the same time, it must be of

God and not of ourselves, or it is not supernatural, it is not grace.

St. Paul speaking of grace in himself says, “I live, now not I; but

Christ liveth in me.” (Gal. 2:20.) The life that comes to us through

the sacraments is the supernatural life of grace or our participa-

tion in the life of Christ.

But what is “liturgical” life? This term might be understood to

mean various external liturgical ceremonies, but in this paper I

take it strictly as meaning simply supernatural life or grace that

comes to us through the liturgy. Not all supernatural life is litur-

gical life. A man may, for example, receive an increase of sancti-

fying grace or actual grace as a result of private, non-liturgical

prayer. Or grace may be granted and the supernatural life infused

in an altogether extraordinary manner, as in the conversion of St.

Paul. Although not all supernatural life is liturgical life, all liturgi-

cal life is supernatural. In order to make the truth of this state-

ment apparent, perhaps we should recall what liturgy is. Abbot

Ildephonse Herwegen defines it as “the entire system of the Church’s

official acts of worship.” ( The Art-Principle of the Liturgy, p. 8.)

According to a slightly different definition, liturgy is “the official

divine worship of the Church for the glory of God and the sanctifi-

cation of the faithful.” ( The Liturgical Movement, p. 6.) It in-

cludes, in the first place, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacra-

ments, the sacramentals, the Divine Office, and the liturgical or

ecclesiastical year, and, in the second place, but as integrally con-

nected with this cult and not as merely something added on, such

external things as ceremonies, ecclesiastical music, art, and archi-

tecture. The liturgy, then, is primarily sacrifice, the sacraments,



33

and prayer, in a word, the means of grace. Both the liturgy as

sacrifice, that is, the Mass, and the liturgy as prayer are beyond the

scope of this paper. I shall treat briefly of the sacraments as
means

of fostering the supernatural life in the parish, underlining
certain

aspects of the effects produced by the sacraments that have been

developed, or perhaps I should say re-asserted, as one of the
results

of the Liturgical Movement. I shall treat first of the fact of the

sacraments’ effectiveness in developing the supernatural
life of a

parish and afterward of some practical ways in which more can be

made of this fact, suggesting how parishioners may be encouraged

to make better use of the sacraments which God in His infinite

goodness has given them to promote His glory and their own sanc-

tification. It is to be hoped that we may have many further

suggestions from our discussion leader and from the floor. Limitation

of time makes it necessary to confine this paper to the first
five

sacraments, those which are most commonly received, omitting

Holy Orders and Matrimony.

Developing what he called “the fundamental idea which underlies

all the liturgy, namely, the process of transfiguration by which
the

fallen race of mankind is progressively assimilated to God,” Dom

Ildephonse Herwegen, in an address he delivered before a Catholic

University audience in 1912, said:

The purpose of the Christian religion is to assimilate man to

God through Christ; to form mankind, therefore, in the likeness of

Christ. Christianus alter Christus — The Christian is another
Christ. The purpose of the Christian religion is to sanctify, to

spiritualize, to deify mankind, to bring us as transfigured Christians

to the transfigured Christ. This is accomplished through
sacrifice

and sacrament and prayer, that is, through the liturgy. 1 he
pur-

pose of the liturgy is the transfiguration of human souls. (The

Art-Principle of the Liturgy, pp. 15, 16.)

This process of transfiguration, this progressive assimilation
of

man to Christ, is in no other way so certainly and effectively brought

about as through the sacraments. They are the deep and
ever-

flowing channels of grace and the ordinary sources of Christ s
life

in us, for they are an extension of the Incarnation.

Efficacy of the Sacraments

The sacraments, unlike some other parts of the liturgy , the

sacramentals, for example, the ecclesiastical year, or prayer
formu-

las, are of divine and not of merely ecclesiastical institution.
Fur-

thermore, they produce their effects, that is, they produce or
increase

grace ex opere operato, in virtue of the work performed, (Council
of

Trent, Sess. VII, can. 8. ), although it must not be lost sight
of that



34

they also operate ex opere operantis, in virtue of the disposition of

the recipient. The sanctification of the recipient is the primary

reason for the existence of a sacrament. “The Sacraments,” says

Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, “do not, indeed, tend directly and immedi-
ately to the adoration and glorification of God, as does the Holy

Sacrifice. These sacred acts have been instituted in the first place

for our sanctification and to apply to our souls the merits acquired

on Calvary. . . . And since these sacraments are given to us through-

out all our existence, we may say that the whole Christian life

essentially consists in receiving and in developing within ourselves

the sacramental graces.”
(
Catholic Liturgy, p. ioi.) It goes with-

out saying that sanctifying grace is infused in all the sacraments.

For the most part, the sanctifying grace peculiar to each sacrament,

what is called sacramental grace, will be considered in this paper.

Strangely enough, the greatest change that ever takes place in

us, or that could possibly take place in a human being, is effected

by the very first sacrament we receive, Baptism. The sacramental

grace of Baptism is birth to supernatural life. It is the sacrament

of the rebirth of the soul by which the recipient becomes a son of

God by adoption and a partaker of the divine nature. Abbot

Marmion says, “We, who are not of the race of God, who are poor

creatures, by nature further from Him than the animal is from

man, we who are infinitely distant from God, hospites et advenae,

how can we be adopted by Him? Here is a marvel of Divine wis-

dom, power, and goodness. God gives us a mysterious share in

His Nature which we call ‘grace’ : ‘that by these you may be made

partakers of the divine nature.’ 2 Peter, 1
:
4.”

(
Christ the Life of the

Soul, pp. 13, 14. ) Nothing else that can ever happen to us can be

so wonderful as our elevation to the supernatural state. But we do

not understand it. The fact is revealed, but it remains an unfathom-

able mystery. Together with this new supernatural life, the three

theological virtues, the four cardinal moral virtues, the seven gifts

of the Holy Ghost, and a claim to actual graces for leading a Christian

life are infused. And Baptism remits all sin and the punishment

due to sin.

The Baptismal Character

Besides the graces it imparts, Baptism impresses upon the soul

a character or seal, which is an indelible spiritual quality in the

nature of a power. It has three principal effects. First, it unites

the person who is baptized with Christ, giving him a share in the

priestly power of Christ. Although the perfection of priestly power

is given only in the sacrament of Holy Orders, it is imparted in a



35

limited degree by Baptism. The priesthood of the laity is given in

a more perfect manner in Confirmation, and it will be discussed

more at length under that sacrament. The second effect of the

baptismal character is that it makes the baptized a member of the

Church and, therefore, a member of the Mystical Body of Christ,

since the two are identical. The doctrine of the Mystical Body

of Christ is the truth of revelation that has received more attention

from theologians in our day than any other, and it is the truth that

gives the liturgy its supreme importance. It means that every

liturgical act involves the whole of the Mystical Body, that is,

Christ, the Head, and all the members. “Let us congratulate our-

selves,” exclaims St. Augustine, “let us break forth in thanksgiving:

we are become not only Christians, but Christ. Do we understand,

my brethren, the outpouring of God’s grace upon us? Let us thrill

with gladness; we are become Christ; He is the Head, we the mem-

bers; the whole Man is He and we.” {Tract, in Joan., 21: 8-9,

quoted by Marmion, Christ the Life of the Soul, p. 89.

)

Since the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, it has been a rather common

practice to divide the sacraments into the five individual sacraments

of Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Penance, and Extreme

Unction, and the two social sacraments of Holy Orders and Matri-

mony. St. Thomas borrowed the division from Hugh of St. Victor.

Although convenient, the division is somewhat misleading. For in

virtue of the character imprinted in Baptism one becomes and re-

mains a member of the Mystical Body of Christ. There is properly

speaking no such thing as a purely individual sacrament, for every

act of a member of the Mystical Body affects in one way or another

all the other members. The third effect of the baptismal character

is to render the recipient capable of receiving the other sacraments.

In the ancient liturgy Baptism was immediately followed by

Confirmation. It is listed immediately after Baptism in the pro-

fession of faith, in the Summa of St. Thomas, and in the Code

of Canon Law.

The Effects of Confirmation

Confirmation is the sacrament of spiritual maturity. It marks the

spiritual coming of age of the recipient. St. Thomas says, “In

this sacrament the plenitude of the Holy Spirit is given for spiritual

strength, such as befits perfect age. Now when a man reaches per-

fect age, he begins to communicate his actions to others.” {Summa

Theol. Ill, 72, 2.) Spiritual maturity is effected by the Holy

Ghost dwelling in the soul, enlightening the intellect and strengthen-

ing the will. He is the Divine Gift to the soul in this sacrament.

He was concomitantly present with sanctifying grace when it was



36

infused in Baptism. But in Confirmation He comes formally to

take up His abode in the soul and to produce in it essentially the

same effects He produced in the souls of the Apostles when He

descended upon them at Pentecost. Sanctifying grace was bestowed

in Baptism, but in Confirmation a greater plenitude of grace is im-

parted and this new fulness of grace overflows to affect the other

members of the Mystical Body. As the sacrament of the Holy

Ghost, Confirmation imparts a richer measure of His gifts than was

received in Baptism. Whereas sanctifying grace gives supernatural

bein£ and inheres in the substance of the soul, the gifts of the Holy

Ghost give facility of supernatural action and inhere in the faculties

of the soul. The first four, wisdom, understanding, knowledge,

and counsel, give light to the intellect; and the last three, fortitude,

piety, and fear of the Lord, add supernatural strength to the will.

Besides the grace of spiritual strength and maturity. Confirmation

imprints upon the soul a seal or character, which is, like the charac-

ter of Baptism, but in a fuller measure, a participation in the priest-

hood of Christ.

The Priesthood of the Laity

The doctrine of the priesthood of the laity is taught by St. Peter

in his First Epistle, Chapter 2, where he says: “Be you also as living

stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up

spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ (verse 4). . . .

But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a purchased

people: that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out

of darkness into his marvelous light.” (verse 9) All the New

Testament statements of the priesthood of the laity are more or less

exact quotations of Exodus, 19:6. The Greek text of the New

Testament here is a little vague, since it may be translated either as

“a kingdom and a priesthood” or “a kingly priesthood.”

But there is nothing vague in the testimony of tradition as to the

priesthood of the laity. In chapter 5 of his excellent book, Men

at Work at Worship, Father Gerald Ellard, S.J., discusses the sub-

ject and shows that the doctrine of the priesthood of the laity as a

participation of the priesthood of Christ due to the characters of

Baptism and Confirmation is clearly taught by such Fathers of the

Church as St. Justin, Martyr, St. Ambrose, St. John Chrysostom,

St. Leo, and St. Augustine. It is also taught by St. Thomas (Sum -

ma Theologica, III, 63) in his treatise on the sacraments in general.

He holds that the character imprinted in three of the sacraments is

a spiritual power that imparts a share in Christ's priesthood and

qualifies the person who has received a character to be used by

Christ as a joint-instrument in His worship of God. Article 3 of



37

Question 63 of the Pars Tertia may be quoted:

Each of the faithful is deputed to receive, or to bestow on others,

things pertaining to the worship of God. And this, properly speak-

ing, is the purpose of the sacramental character. Now the whole

rite of the Christian religion is derived from Christ’s priesthood.

Consequently, it is clear that the sacramental character is especially

the character of Christ, to whose character the faithful are likened

by reason of the sacramental characters, which are nothing else

than certain participations of Christ’s priesthood, flowing from

Christ Himself.

For several centuries, on account of the errors of the sixteenth

century heresiarchs, Catholic theologians have been emphasizing

the sacramentality of Holy Orders, which was denied by the Re-

formers, and the result has been that the priesthood of the laity,

which they have in virtue of the characters of Baptism and Con-

firmation, has, to a great extent, been obscured or forgotten. This

doctrine is, however, being re-asserted in our day. During the past

six years two doctoral dissertations have been written on the sub-

ject, one at the Catholic University of America and the other at

Laval University, Quebec. In his Encyclical Letter on The Repara-

tion Due to the Sacred Heart, May 8, 1928, the late Pope Pius XI

said, “Also those Christians called, and rightly so, by the Prince of

the Apostles, ‘a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood’ ... are to

offer ‘sacrifices for sin’ . . . and this in much the same manner as

every priest.’’

The priesthood initially possessed by all the faithful as an effect

of the character of Baptism is increased by the character of Con-

firmation. It is not only a passive quality that enables them to re-

ceive spiritual advantages. It is a real and active power, a par-

ticipation in Christ’s priesthood, that enables them to offer up sacri-

fice and perform other sacred and liturgical functions, even though

they must do so in union with those who have received the fuller,

more perfect, ministerial, and hierarchical power conferred by the

character of the sacrament of Holy Orders. Only the character of

Holy Orders gives the power to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,

forgive sins, and administer the sacrament of Extreme Unction.

But the priesthood of the laity is nonetheless real because it is a less

full and perfect participation in the priesthood of Christ than is

possessed by the minister of Christ who has received the character

of Holy Orders.

The Sacrament of Catholic Action

In our day the sacrament of Confirmation is very frequently re-

ferred to as the sacrament of Catholic Action. For a clearer under-

standing of the relation between Confirmation and Catholic Action,



38

it seems advisable to state what Catholic Action is. It has been

officially defined by Pius XI as “the participation of the laity in

the Apostolate of the Hierarchy of the Church.” Catholic activities

are Catholic Action only when certain definite conditions are ful-

filled. i. The activities must be performed by the laity. 2. They

must either be assigned or approved by the Bishop of the diocese.

3. They must be apostolic. 4. They must be organized. Although

Confirmation especially qualifies the confirmed to engage in Catholic

Action, the mere reception of the Confirmational character is not

in itself a call to Catholic Action. Participation in the Apostolate

of the Hierarchy is an extraordinary work, and as Archbishop

Cicognani has pointed out, it presupposes a call or at least the approv-

al of the Holy Father or the Bishops.

Effects of the Other Sacraments

As the greatest of the sacraments and the center of the liturgy, the

Blessed Eucharist has been made the subject of a special paper,

and it has been ably treated by Father Patrick Cummins, O.S.B.

But I should like to state in as few words as possible what seem

to me to be the most important effects of this sacrament. The

special grace of the Holy Eucharist is, in the first place, the grace

of a personal union with Christ, which is real, intimate, and trans-

forming, in the sense that Christ lives in us, we put on Christ,

and we are mysteriously changed into other Christs. The effect

of this union with Christ is like the effect of food upon the body.

According to the Council of Florence (1431 ), the Holy Eucharist

affords the soul spiritual sustenance, growth, refreshment, and joy.

By the fact that it unites us with Christ, the Holy Eucharist also

unites us with all the members of the Mystical Body. It is not

only a union with Christ but a communion with all the members

of which He is the Head. And this is a truth that is being more

and more insisted upon in our day. Finally, the Holy Eucharist,

according to Our Lord’s words in the sixth chapter of St. John’s

gospel and the teaching of the Council of Trent, is a pledge of future

glory and eternal happiness.

The first effect of the sacrament of Penance is the remission of sin,

and simultaneously grace is infused into the soul. There is an

important connection between the Holy Eucharist and Penance,

as the latter is always more or less a preparation for the reception

of the former. And even daily communicants living in the world

should be advised to go to confession at least twice a month.

Theologians do not fully agree as to what is the special sacramen-

tal grace of Extreme Unction. But certainly much could be done



39

by zealous pastors to make the faithful more conscious of the spiri-

tual advantages, desirability, and beauty of this sacrament. A

recent writer has described it as “the stepchild of our modern

religious mind.” And he goes on to say that “it walks about in

rags and has been pushed out of its hereditary place in a full and

real Christian life. Its six more fortunate brethren in the sacra-

mental system cry for its restoration to its full hereditary and con-

stitutional rights, which it has lost in our popular version of pastoral

theology and practices.” (H. A. Reinhold in The Commonweal,

November 7, 1941* P- 67.)

St. Thomas calls Extreme Unction unctio ad gloriam. “This

sacrament,” he says, “immediately disposes man for glory.” (Suppl .,

Q. 29, ad 1 ) According to Suarez, “This sacrament,
unless it finds

an impediment, takes away all evil that might hinder or delay our

entry into glory. In the hour of death man is most in need of this

preparation. This sacrament has been instituted for the very hour

of death. Thus it is quite obvious that this sacrament has been

instituted for this very end: to prepare men for glory. . . Nothing

else has been instituted to achieve this end.” (De . Sacr. Poenit. et

Extr. Unct., disp. 41, sec. 1, n. 44.) The opinion that it is the

sacrament that prepares for immediate entrance into Heaven is

gaining wider and wider acceptance.

Making the Most of the Sacraments

The cultivation of a fuller and clearer understanding of the effects

produced by the sacraments would seem to be, in general, the best

means of inducing parishioners to make the best possible use of the

sacraments. The marvelous effects of the sacraments and their

beautiful liturgy — the elements used, the ceremonies performed,
and the prayers recited — can and should be explained in the puplit
and in the school. Discussion groups will find the doctrine and the

liturgy of the sacramental system most practical, interesting and

edifying subjects for study. Father Francis J. Connell, C.Ss.R., of

the Catholic University of America, last year published seven excel-

lent study club pamphlets, one on each of the sacraments. They

present in popular style the best current thought on the theology

and liturgy of the sacraments. (Paulist Press, 1940.) In regard to

some of the sacraments in particular: Baptism. Father Godfrey

Dieckmann, O.S.B., Editor of Orate Fratres, in a paper read at the

Liturgical Week in Chicago in October, 1940, made some valuable

suggestions regarding the liturgy of Baptism, which I summarize

here. The Vidi aquam, or small Baptism of Easter, should be ex-

plained to the faithful, and they should be encouraged to renew their



40

Baptismal vows before the High Mass on Easter Sunday. It

would be appropriate to decorate the baptistry, or at least the bap-

tismal font, for Easter and Easter Week. The baptistry should

be more modestly decorated at other times, whenever the sacrament

is to be administered. The First Communion Class should assem-

ble around the Baptismal font and renew their vows on the day of

their First Holy Communion. Parishioners can be reminded of

their Baptism if the pastor blesses their houses with Easter Water.

Since the publication of the 1925 edition of the Roman Ritual, this

blessing is now permitted during the whole of the Easter season.

The administration of Baptism might well be made the Sunday

afternoon devotion, during which a second priest could read and

explain the ceremony and those present could renew their Baptismal

vows. So far Father Godfrey.

At the same Liturgical Week it was suggested that the Sunday

announcements include the names of those who have been baptized

in the parish during the week, with a few words added to explain

the tremendous importance of the elevation of the newly-baptized

to the supernatural state. It was pointed out that parents would

do well to observe the Baptismal anniversaries of their children

with at least as much solemnity as their birthday anniversaries.

And, finally, it was suggested that each person baptized be permitted

to take home the Baptismal robe and candle used in the ceremony,

to be kept and treasured as reminders of the reception of this

great sacrament.

A few years ago a writer in one of f,he liturgical magazines sug-

gested a beautifully illuminated “baptismal certificate” to be given

to the newly-baptized members of the parish. It is very different

from the ordinary baptismal certificate, and it is too long to quote

here in its entirety. But it begins thus:

Memento

Benedicamus Domino — Let us bless the Lord, who, on the
day of in the year of grace,

,
in the Church

of at did admit me,

though unworthy, to divine fellowship, and did adopt me into

the chosen race, making me, as I am reminded by the Sacred

Text, a member of the
‘

‘royal priesthood,
’

’ and of “a holy people,

and all this by virtue of the Sacrament of Holy Baptism which

was conferred on me, through no merits of my own, signing me

with an eternal, indestructible sign, so that I was truly born of

God, born again of water and the Holy Ghost, endowed with



41

divine life, refashioned in the image of God Himself, to be

a (brother, sister) of Jesus Christ, made worthy

to be the dwelling-place thenceforth of the Holy Ghost, re-

made into a member of the Body of Christ Himself and engrafted

as a branch in that sacred, living, fruitful Vine.

Confirmation, Blessed Eucharist, and Penance

Confirmation. A great deal more should be made of the Bishop’s

periodical visit to administer the sacrament of Confirmation. The

liturgy and effects of the Sacament should be explained in sermons

on several Sundays before the sacrament is actually administered.

And every effort should be made to have the largest possible at-

tendance at the ceremony.

The Blessed Eucharist. The members of the parish should be im-

bued with the idea that the reception of Holy Communion is really

a usual and normal part of their participation in the Holy Sacrifice

of the Mass. The time for Masses should be very carefully arranged

to suit the convenience of the parishioners.

Penance. Every facility should be afforded for going to confession.

The Cure of Ars heard confession for from sixteen to eighteen hours

a day. Confessors should bear in mind that they are to exercise

the offices of father, physician and teacher, as well as that of judge.

When St. John Baptist de Vianney was appointed to take charge

of the parish of Ars in 1818, it was considered the worst parish in

the diocese and one of the worst in all France. Very few of the

people went to Mass even on Sunday. Working on Sunday was a

common practice of the peasants belonging to the parish and those

who did not work spent their time drinking and idling in the tavern.

Religion was commonly and almost universally neglected. When

he died forty-one years later, he left Ars a model parish. The in-

fluence of the personal sanctity of St. John Baptist de Vianney,

patron of parish priests, cannot be overestimated. But what I

wish to point out in connection with the transformation that the

grace of God brought about through the instrumentality of this

humble country pastor is the means he used. What he did was

simply to get the people of his parish to go to confession and Holy

Communion. The means he employed for the sanctification of

his flock was the two sacraments most frequently received, Penance

and the Blessed Eucharist. These two liturgical sources were the

principal means of both his own personal sanctification and the

supernatural life of those committed to his care. Here was a litur-

gical movement in the best sense of the term, although it was not so

designated at the time.



42

Example of Pius X

When His Holiness, Pius X, of blessed memory, undertook “to

restore all things in Christ,” the means he selected as most apt to

attain this end was early and frequent Holy Communion, which in-

volves, of course, the more frequent reception of the sacrament of

Penance. “The primary and indispensable source of the true

Christian spirit,” he said, “is the active participation in the most

holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church.”

About a year ago, the distinguished British publisher, F. J. Sheed,

speaking from this platform on the Church in Europe, expressed the

opinion that the future of the Church on the European Continent

was decided by Pius X more than thirty years ago, when in 1905
he invited all Catholics to daily Holy Communion and when a little

later, in 1910, he approved the decree of the Congregation of the

Sacraments on early Communion, which permits children to receive

their first Holy Communion as soon as they have attained the use

of reason. A growing consciousness of Christian solidarity and the

importance of the Mystical Body which derives from the sacrament

of Baptism and expresses itself socially in the practice of the vir-

tues of justice and charity, the apostolate of Catholic Action under

the direction of the Bishops and the inspiration of the Holy Ghost,

Who is our special gift in Confirmation, the active participation

in the sacred mystery of the Mass together with the practice of

frequent Holy Communion — these are of the essence of the Litur-
gical Movement. They are the Church’s program for winning

the world for Christ the King.

In our difficult and troubled time, in spite of the darkness that has

settled over the face of the earth, the Church’s means for overcom-

iqg the world — her Sacrifice, her sacraments, her prayer — are
more than sufficient, for in them is the power of God and the grace

of Our Lord Jesus Christ.



Informal Address

By the Most Reverend Christian Winkelmann, D.D.

Bishop of Wichita

(Condensed

)

Your Excellencies and Brother Priests:

I am happy to join the host, Bishop Schulte of Leavenworth,

and Bishop Thill in expressing my sentiments of profound thanks

to the good Benedictine Fathers at Atchison and other generous

cooperators who have come from far and near to assist us in car-

rying out this most timely and necessary program.

The tribute of appreciative gratitude tendered our beloved

friend, Monsignor Martin B. Hellriegel, is one that I deeply treasure.

My long years of association with him and my intimate contacts
with him, as assistant, and later on when he was Chaplain of O’Fal-

lon, convinces me that we have in him a leader in the liturgical

movement who is deserving of all our thanks. For almost twenty-

five years, as Chaplain of O’Fallon, he devoted himself to profound

study and meditation, that enabled him to prepare for leadership

in the liturgical movement. Occasional visists were made to O’Fal-

lon for the purpose of becoming orientated in the liturgical movement

and to .receive from him counsel and advice in regard to matters

liturgical that were discussed by the great leaders in Europe, with

whom he was personally acquainted.

These long years as Chaplain at O’Fallon have enabled him “to

increase”. The great Metropolitan of Saint Louis promoted him

to the pastorate of the Holy Cross Church in Baden, to give prac-

tical evidence that the liturgical movement is something not only

for our convents and educational institutions but also for our

parishes.

Just recently, Reverend Fathers, I have been reading the last

work of the late Father McGarry entitled “He Cometh”. Permit

me to quote these few significant words:

“The magnificent liturgy of the Church has as its foundation

Sacred Scripture and Tradition. It contains inspired poetry and

the dramatical and the lyrical efforts of the sons of the Church.

It is ascetical and mystical, doctrinal and moral. No genius can
know its depth, and only saints follow what it counsels all.”

These words of the late Father McGarry indicate that we per-

haps have been somewhat indifferent to our study of the liturgical

life. Monsignor Hillenbrand during the course of the Liturgical

Week in Chicago stated that the

“liturgy is for the people — the people drifted away from it. The
burden of the liturgical movement is to restore it to the people.



44

The only reason that we have the liturgical movement is to give
back to the people an intelligent, active participation, and that

is founded upon the bed rock of what the Pope wants.”

Whilst it is true that the liturgical movement strives to bring

back to the faithful the great riches contained in the liturgical life

of the Church, still, Reverend Fathers, we, the “dispensers of the

sacred mysteries”, must first acquire a better and more appreciative

understanding of the liturgical life of the Church. We today are
blessed to live during the period of restoration. As a result of

this movement we realize more and more our exalted dignity and

the sacred duties that we have to perform. We first must become

most enthusiastic about this movement. And once the spirit has

moved us we, in turn, can inspire enthusiastic followers in the ranks

of the laity. Nemo dat, quod non habet.

As an additional proof that our efforts are most heartily com-

mended by the present gloriously reigning Pontiff, permit me to

call your attention to a recent decree of the Sacred Congregation

of the Council which appears in the September issue of the Acta

Apostolicae Sedes. The decree is entitled “De Fidelibus exhor-

tandis ut Missae sacrificio frequenter ac devote intersint.” By

special mandate of the Holy Father, the Sacred Congregation de-

mands that the Bishops and priests again present to the attention

of the laity the dignity, the purpose and the fruits of the Holy

Sacrifice. The first of the five points is of particular interest to

us today. It leaves no doubt in our mind that it is a wish of the

Holy Father that bishops and priests become deeply interested

in the liturgical movement and as a result of their study, stimulate

the interest of the laity. I quote for you today just the first of

the five points contained in this decree:

De Sacrificii natura et excellentia atque de ejusdem fini-

bus ac salutaribus effectibus pro mundi vita, et demum de
ejusdem ritibus ac caeremoniis, ut ipsi non passive tan-

tum eidem int£rsin.t, sed cum sacerdotibus Sacrum pera-

gentibus unum sint animo et corde, fide et caritate.

As I become more and more familiar with the deep significance

and beauty of the liturgy of Mother Church, I regret that I am

not a seminarian today. Whilst we reverence the great teachers

at our Alma Mater, Kenrick Seminary, still today we know that

our students are receiving a better training in the liturgical life

than it was our privilege to receive.

I can assure all of you that I am happy to see such a generous

response to the first invitation for a Liturgical Day in the State of

Kansas. It is our wish that periodically these liturgical days be

conducted in our state. The Diocese of Wichita stands ready to

cooperate one hundred per cent with these endeavors.



Remarks

By the Right Reverend Columban Thuis, O.S.B.

Abbot, St. Joseph’s Abbey, St. Benedict, La.

The Liturgical Movement is not only useful or even necessary,

—

it is inevitable. It is not so much a novelty, or even a revival,

but rather a more vigorous growth of the mustard seed planted

by Christ. The Liturgy is the Common Act of our religion. All

creation is a re-echo of the Word of God; Liturgy is His formulated

word of worship. Liturgy becomes the concrete and practical

realization and expression of our corporate life in the Mystical

Body of Christ.

Hence my delight and profit to be with you and to participate

in this Common Act, that makes us one in Christ. The papers and

discussions have been sources of inspiration that have found con-

crete expressions in the morning’s solemn mass, the chanting of the

vespers, the singing of the compline by the school children. You

have not only talked about it, you have done it. The inspiration

will be not only for your ‘Kansas Liturgical Day’,— it will go forth
to influence also the national liturgical movement.

One question has been asked : How can we keep in touch with the

present Liturgical Movement? There are many ways. May I

mention only a few. There is the Orate Fratres, a Liturgical Re-

view published by St John’s Abbey. Then there are the reports

of the two National Liturgical Weeks, — the 1940 of Chicago, the
1941 of St Paul, obtainable from the Benedictine Liturgical Con-

ference, 528 High Street, Newark, N.J. Do not overlook the

splendid ‘Men at Work at Worship’ by one of your own Kansan

speakers, Father Ellard, S.J. A brief but beautiful summary and

forecast is given by Theodore Maynard in his last chapter: “The

Corporate Vision” of his recent book: “The Story of American

Catholicism.” To quote from this chapter: The Liturgical Move-

ment “is the most remarkable of all the Catholic developments

of our time. ... It is perhaps the most significant of that spiritual

awakening in America. ...”

The very practical address on Gregorian Chant by Father Koch

brings home some lessons as to the liturgical chant. In this Com-

mon Act of our religion, — liturgy as the concerted action of the
Mystical Body of Christ—

,
there is also the expression in communi-

ty song. The liturgical chant is primarily prayer sung, and not

music rendered. Prayer is the soul of the plain chant. Take away

the soul and you have a lifeless body. Hence the great work on



46

the part of a choir master to teach the chant not only as sung but

also as prayed.

A few practical remarks on a method of teaching prayer-song

may be of value. This method refers primarily to the proper of the

mass, though it can be applied also to the ordinary of the mass.

Every Sunday, at St. Joseph’s Abbey, the Schola Cantorum, con-

sisting of both monks and seminarians, prepare the proper of the

Sunday mass as follows. First the prayer-thought is considered.

Thep the greater rhythm of the chant melody, expressive of this

prayer-thought is developed in a general singing. After this, the

choir returns to the theory taught in the class room during the week,

— namely to the delicacies of the subordinate rhythmic elements.
We find two books to be of great help in this: — "The Year of Our
Lord,” by Loehr, and “Chants of the Vatican Gradual” by Johner.

One great hindrance to the restoration of the chant, particularly

of the ordinary of the mass to be sung congregationally, is the in-

sistence on too much musical perfection with the consequent con-

finement of the chant to the musically gifted few. The Liturgical

Chant has a variety of forms ranging from the straight tone as

had in ‘Et cum spiritu tuo’, through simple syllabic melodies up to

the intricate melismatic. The simpler forms offer participation to

all the faithful, even though they be not equipped with musical

finesse. This community singing has something higher than mere

delight in beauty of sound, higher than a symphony of sound,

—

it is a symphony of souls.



The Liturgical Movement and

Congregational Singing

By the Reverend Herman Koch

Pastor, St. Thomas Church, Kansas City, Kans.

Every telephone in every rectory in every city of any size rings

frequently every Saturday afternoon and every Sunday morning

for a purpose that annoys every pastor and assistant pastor. “Hello,

is this St. Thomas’ Rectory? What time is the last Mass on Sunday?

Is it a High Mass?” Now I do not think that we should be an-

noyed by these questions as far as the inquirer is concerned, but

we ought rather be annoyed at ourselves for not having found out

sooner why these questions are asked and furthermore for not

having solved the questions. Naturally we know that it is the

mind of the Church wherever possible that there should be a High

Mass or a Solemn High Mass every Sunday and Holyday. In the

intention of the Church it is the most important Mass of the day.

The liturgy of the High Mass has been made to appeal to the

people. Why then the question: Is it a High Mass ?

The fault lies not with the Liturgy; not with the people, but

with ourselves. We have not done our part. Let us proceed

to answer.

First: Many an assistant pastor remembers how Sunday after

Sunday he squirmed on the sedilia at the official High Mass at

10:30 o’clock while the Pastor who had said a more convenient

Mass, and now with the power of a good steak under his belt imitat-

ing a Bossuet or Bourdaloue (the king of preachers and the preacher

of kings) having very diligently perused the masterful works of a

Brownson, demonstrated for a long forty-five minutes to the con-

gregation what a great modern orator had arisen on the horizon.

Canon Law indeed imposes upon us, as does the Baltimore Coun-

cil and our own Diocesan Statutes the duty of preaching at each

Mass and instructing the faithful, and of breaking to them the bread

of life; but we wonder just how much instruction was really ac-

complished. Rather might we not say with the good Irish lady:

“In spite of the sermon, Father, I still believe in the Catholic

Church.” So we might strike our breasts and say Mea Culpa for

a sermon too long, and hence very tiresome; and a sermon based

too much on philosophical arguments and not enough on the lives

of the Saints and the simple truths of our faith.

Second: In the line of Church music: Is it not too true that we

have been victims of sentimentality and emotion on the one hand,



48

and cowardice and culpable silence on the other? We forgot that
the Church is the House of God, even outside the time of regular

services. I say we have been given to sentimentality and emotion,

because we have turned a deaf ear to the instructions and decrees

of the Church down through the centuries, to the Motu Proprio

of Pope Pius X, and subsequent instructions concerning the nature

of Church music.

Sacred Music is defined in the Motu Proprio as "a complementary

part of the solemn liturgy, participating in the general scope of the

liturgy, which is the glory of God and the sanctification and edifi-

cation of the faithful.” Sacred music, the decree continues, must

be holy, because it is for God, who is holy, and for the people who

are to be made holy or sanctified through the work of the solemn

liturgy. It must be true art, and hence may not offend against

the true and the beautiful. Finally, it must be adapted for the

whole Church, and hence be universal.

The official music of the Church, since the time of the Great St.

Gregory (590-604) has been the Gregorian Chant, because it is

holy, it is true art, and it is universal, in the highest degree, and

therefore is the chant proper to the Church. We have not been

as wise as serpents. We have allowed an “enemy to sow cockle”.

By allowing music to be sung that appealed rather to the emotions

and sentiments, we have forgotten that we “are the salt of the

earth,” and since “the salt has lost its savor,” undesirable music

has crept into the House of God.

Or might we accuse ourselves of saying “Well we know what

the Motu Proprio requires but because we were victims of cowardice

and shameful silence, some soloist or choir director, or organist

who was more concerned with his own glorification, than the honor

and glory of God, has been allowed to exhibit his vocal ability or

musical training, and feeling that this could better be done by using

emotional and sentimental music contrary to the Church, we could

not interest such a person in true sacred music, and we were afraid

to offend him or lose his so called valuable service.”

Gregorian music is true art. It is holy. It abides by the defini-

tion of the Church as defined by the Holy Father. It is beautiful

in its simplicity. It has not been composed to glorify man, but

for God’s honor and glory. In Gregorian music and in all genuine

sacred music there is no repetition and hence it has brevity. All

of us have unfading memories of being bored, while fasting at the

High Mass, listening to the choir grazing on forbidden music;

forbidden because of many, many repetitions; forbidden because

it savored of the world, forbidden because it was not holy, nor was



49

it true art, a choir wrestling with a Credo fifteen or twenty minutes

before we heard the final Amen.

There has been too much concern about solos, too much concern

about trying to entertain, rather than how we might add dignity

to the liturgy. The Gregorian Chant is the supreme model

of the Church music, so that the following rule is established:

“The more closely a composition for Church approaches in its move-

ments, inspiration and savor the Gregorian form, the more sacred

and liturgical it becomes: and the more out of harmony it is with

that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple.” (Motu

Proprio, n. 3

)

The Mass is the official act of divine worship. Why music at

Mass? Why a high Mass? Except to give greater solemnity to

the Liturgy. Only recently have we been told to “Pray the Mass.”

In our younger years every one said— go to Mass— attend Mass

—

hear Mass — assist at Mass. Even as we have erred in the past
by not stressing praying the Mass, so we have not been good shep-

herds of good Church music. The use of the Missal has been for

a few years emphasized very much, with much fruit. We say the

proper way to come to Church is armed with a Missal. As youths

we were told to bring a prayer book and rosary.

What can be done? First of all, let us bring the people to a

knowledge of the Mass by putting the Missal in the hands of every-

one. After the people know the Mass through the Missal con-

gregational singing will be accomplished much more readily. Par-

don the reference: In St. Thomas’ Church the Missal awaits every

member of the Parish at the church door. This Missal has the

ordinary of the Mass — and the propers for the Sundays and Holy-
days for a month. By having the propers for each Sunday the

people are being educated as to what parts of the Mass change

—

and what parts remain the same — and what parts sometimes are
different.

At the door of the church a couple of youngsters graciously give

to every one coming in a copy of the Missal. After Mass, the Missal

is put back in the box, prepared for that purpose in the vestibule.

The usual few who are absent-minded or preoccupied leave the

Missal in the pew, keeping in mind that the sexton ought to be

kept busy between the Masses picking up Missals. In this way each

congregation on Sunday, no matter how many Masses there may

be, use the same Missals, and thus the expense is cut to a minimum.

It is indeed a real treat to observe the people devoutly following

and praying the Mass intelligently, and they know exactly what



50

the priest is saying, and they are praying with him. At first,

Sunday after Sunday the priest turned the pages with the people.

Now we do it occasionally for the sake of converts and newcomers.
By the way, converts really enjoy the Mass using the Missal.

This pamphlet form of the Missal is published by the Catholic

Truth Society of Oregon, and usually has about 35 pages.

What has been done to bring the Missal into the hands of every

one can also be done for congregational singing. Perhaps not as

rapidly nor as universally, but to such an extent that the “quondam

long drawn out High Mass” will become more agreeable to the

people, because of its shortened form and of the active participa-

tion of the people in the singing. It is the mind of the Church.

Therefore I have faith in its possibilities.

Again at St. Thomas’ Church, for the Lenten Devotions— No-
vena Service every Friday evening, evening devotions each evening

during October, as well as each evening during May, the Novena

just finished before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, at

Benediction on Sundays the entire congregation sings all the hymns

and responses. It is really a treat to hear them. We have no

hymns during the Low Mass. On weekdays as well as on Sundays,

hymns are sung before and after Mass. The children in the upper

grades recite all the prayers with the altar boys. All Requiem

Masses are sung by the four upper grades down in the pews, (not

in the choir loft) as also are the High Masses during the week

and on Holydays. We have a High Mass at least every Friday.

The church choir on Sundays sings very little music that is not

Gregorian Chant.

All the propers of the Mass are always sung by the church choir,

as well as by the children every time they sing a High Mass. By

eliminating the unliturgical long drawn out music, and using the

Gregorian Gloria and Credo, and having a simple instruction of

about 10 or 12 minutes to replace the old fashioned long sermon,

the High Mass usually takes little more than forty-five minutes.

The number of calls is diminishing — “Is it a High Mass?” And
we do not have to resort to the unwholesome practice of having

the High Mass earlier, for fear that the people who want to go to

the latest Mass possible will go elsewhere. All the responses

whether at Mass or other services are sung without organ accom-

paniment.

Now that this has been accomplished I am ready to start with

the ideal, namely the whole congregation singing the High Mass.

And when this will become an actuality I feel that the people who

used to worry about, and be worried with the High Mass, will



51

exclaim even as they said when they first started using the practical

Sunday Missal pamphlet, “My! Father! that is the shortest Mass

I ever attended.” We must begin with the children. It is difficult

for older people to change their ways.

A Parish Kyriale can be placed in the hands of every one ( publish-

ed by Collegeville Press, very durable make-up. ) The children will

remember the parts of the Mass and if they are used every Sunday,

gradually the older people, when they have realized that it is the

mind of the Church will be able to join in and sing the Mass. I

would suggest taking the Gloria and Credo to start with, since

during this part, the people are not praying the Mass, but merely

waiting for the choir to get to the end. By keeping them occupied

with a Kyriale, and if not singing, at least following, they would

be occupied and eventually learn after hearing these parts sung again

and again. I have already explained how the whole congregation

can join in at all of the other services.

This may sound idealistic. Maybe I am an optimist. I hope

that it can become a reality.

P. S. The Sunday Parish Bulletin is inexpensive and is a more

effective way of making announcements than from the pulpit, be-

cause the parishioners keep it in their homes for a reminder — and
it does save a lot of time at Mass.

/