Mankind’s highest undertakings have typically begun with a great deal of preparation. Columbus’ epic voyage of discovery in 1492 was no spur of the moment journey. The technology to land man on the moon in 1969 was not patched together overnight.
If this is so for these merely temporal achievements, can it be any less so for the greatest of all tasks that Almighty God has placed into the hands of frail mortals to carry out by His divine power and command, the confection of the Holy Eucharist?
Our Lord has been so superabundantly generous in bestowing the power to celebrate Mass upon His priests that we can make the mistake of taking for granted its daily celebration at thousands of altars around the world. I confess that I myself have habitually made this terrible mistake, often arriving for Mass at the last minute with a head full of distractions, scarcely prepared for what is each day the most sacrosanct event on the face of the earth, an event embracing all of salvation history and setting before our eyes a re-presentation of the very Sacrifice that has opened for us the way to Heaven.
Fully aware of our human frailty, the Holy Spirit has inspired the Church over the course of time to envelop the essential elements of the Mass in a veritable “forest” of prayers and ceremonies intended to impel both the priest and the congregants to recognize the magnitude of what is taking place at the altar, hidden from our senses. This is particularly so in the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, which provides multiple opportunities for us to “stop, look, and listen” as the priest proceeds step by step toward the supreme moment of consecration.
For many decades now, one of the fundamental debates regarding the sacred liturgy has been the question of whether the rites of the Mass ought to have been divested of their centuries-old complexity in the name of achieving “noble simplicity.” Over the years since this “Restoring the Sacred” column began, we have looked at this question from various perspectives. Here we return to the issue to examine what the ceremonies of the Mass express regarding its importance as a daily event celebrated thousands of times around the globe.
The simplification of the rites of the Mass has come in two basic forms — in the changes decided upon by the “Concilium,” the commission entrusted with the preparation of the reformed Roman Missal subsequently promulgated in 1970, and in reckless, arbitrary, additional changes made by individual priests who have chosen to discard even ceremonies retained in the Missal of 1970. The latter are often taking their cue from liturgists who in academic publications are pushing for an even more radical “simplification” of the Mass, supposedly to complete the total reform of the liturgy that, they assert, the post-Vatican II liturgical books merely began.
As someone who attends both the Extraordinary Form Mass and the Ordinary Form Mass on a regular basis, I have been made increasingly aware of the contrasts between these two “forms” of the Roman Rite. Of late, I have been noticing just how much the terseness of the first portion of the Ordinary Form negatively impacts one’s perception of the importance and magnitude of the Mass.
This is all the more so with nuptial Masses and funeral Masses in which the entire penitential rite is omitted. Supposedly this terseness is meant to make the Mass more “user-friendly” for the faithful by making it more understandable and less burdensome. Yet what does this rather quick climb to the summit of Mount Calvary do to our sense of where we are and what the priest is doing at the altar?
The “how” of our daily activities goes a long way in communicating to ourselves and to others whether a particular activity is important or not. The most important events in our lives involve a heightened level of preparation and a very detail-oriented course of action in carrying them out.
One obvious example of this is what it takes to prepare for and carry out a wedding. It is for the bride and groom a truly life-changing event, and so the manner of its execution ought to express its magnitude.
That which constitutes the essential matter and form of the Sacrament of Matrimony is itself quite simple — the freely given exchange of consent to marriage between the bride and the groom, the “marriage contract” as it is called — yet this simple act is clothed in a considerable amount of surrounding ceremonies, protocol, and decorum so as to communicate in no uncertain terms the gravity of the promise being made and its irrevocability. The bride wears a dress unlike any other she has worn. Even the guests at the wedding are expected to dress in a special manner that expresses their respect for what is taking place.
These considerations apply in a supreme way to the celebration of the greatest of the sacraments, the Holy Eucharist. The manner in which a priest celebrates the Mass ought to reflect the magnitude of what is taking place at the altar. For each and every Mass is a re-presentation of the most decisive event in the history of the world, the Sacrifice of Calvary.
The Mass is likewise a life-changing event on a daily basis because of the magnitude of the graces it bestows, albeit in an unseen manner. So it is fitting and just that the Mass be celebrated with a level of ceremony and attention to detail that communicates its importance. This is best achieved by following a carefully prescribed order of words and actions.
It is highly significant that from the earliest days of the Church the Latin word that has been used to describe the Church’s public worship has always been liturgia, a word meaning “work.” In our daily lives an activity identified as “work” characteristically entails effort, time, energy, attention to detail, and perseverance, even to the point of exhaustion. For those who want to do their best at work, doing what is quickest, easiest, and most convenient for themselves usually doesn’t cut it.
Similarly, when a family member or a friend does something special for us, our initial reaction is to think or say “how thoughtful” it was — that is, we recognize how much careful thought and planning, time and effort, and attention to detail went into preparing this special surprise for us. The person did not simply do what was quickest, easiest, and most convenient. He took the time and effort to do far more as a sincere expression of love and affection.
In light of the above, is it not abundantly clear that in offering in thanksgiving worship that is worthy and just to our infinitely good and loving God and Creator, we ought to go well beyond what is easiest, quickest, and most convenient for ourselves?
As we described in an essay several months ago, the notion of slimming down the rites of the sacred liturgy to a more “convenient” form for the clergy and the laity was first floated during Vatican deliberations regarding proposed changes to the Roman Pontifical as proposed in a 1960 position paper coauthored by the Vincentian priest and future archbishop, Annibale Bugnini, C.M. († 1982), and his Vincentian colleague, Fr. Carlo Braga, C.M. († 2014) (The Wanderer, Oct. 2, 2025, p. 3B). It certainly seemed to become a guiding principle in the liturgical reforms that followed. Can it honestly be said that changes of this sort have made the liturgy more understandable if these changes have in practice diminished our understanding of the importance of the Mass?
The situation is made considerably worse when the priest decides to “simplify” even more by dropping or changing prayers on his own, by discarding prescribed liturgical actions, by ignoring or defying the rubrics regarding the proper vestments to be worn, and the like.
Our fathers in the faith considered the Mass so supremely momentous that they built vast cathedrals and basilicas of consummate artistry to give this sacred celebration a setting commensurate with its grandeur. In stunning contrast to the stark “meal tables” erected as altars in all too many of our modern churches, the great artists of centuries past designed magnificent altars that spoke volumes about what takes place there.
Moreover, the Church’s ever-deepening perception of the primal importance of the Mass inspired from the Middle Ages onward a vast corpus of literature aimed at ensuring its proper and fruitful celebration. First and foremost in this literary patrimony are the countless missals, initially handwritten and later printed as an essential “liturgical furnishing” for every Mass.
One could well make the case that the missal is the most important of all books, even surpassing the Bible, because, in addition to containing in its readings the most important portions of sacred Scripture, it also provides all the texts needed to confect the Holy Eucharist — all the texts needed to bring the risen Christ down upon our altars.
Yet missals constitute just one component of the multifaceted literary output across the centuries regarding the Mass. Not only have there been supplemental liturgical books such as the Caeremoniale Episcoporum and the Memoriale Rituum to provide additional rubrics for particular circumstances, but there have also been innumerable manuals explaining the proper interpretation and implementation of the Mass rubrics, as well as treatises expounding the spiritual meaning of the Mass and all its ceremonies.
It is little wonder that two of Europe’s four earliest printed books concern the Mass, namely, a 12-page Canon Missae dating from around 1458, comprising the Roman Canon and the portions of the Mass that immediately precede and follow it, and a 1459 edition of the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of William Durandus of Mende († 1296), a monumental exposition upon the mystical interpretation of every detail of the Mass as well as other liturgical ceremonies.
For all that might be said in comparisons of how the Mass is celebrated, it is ultimately the responsibility of each and every one of us to cultivate within ourselves a proper disposition in attending Mass, regardless of how it is celebrated. No matter how much it may be simplified or shortened, the Mass remains the all-holy re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary, deserving of our awe and utmost reverence. By instilling in ourselves an acute perception of what the Mass truly is, we can make every Mass we attend spiritually fruitful for ourselves and for all those included in our prayers.
