By JAMES MONTI
When asked upon her deathbed which of the virtues was the most important in the sight of God, the Italian lay mystic St. Gemma Galgani (1878-1903) answered emphatically, “Humility, humility, the foundation of all the others” (Fr. Germanus of St. Stanislaus, CP, The Life of the Servant of God Gemma Galgani, an Italian Maiden of Lucca, London, Sands and Co., St. Louis, B. Herder, 1913, p. 149).
In the lives of the saints and in traditional Catholic spirituality, the primal importance and necessity of humility are uncontested. Yet when we turn to contemporary attitudes within the Church, as well as beyond, humility seems to be an endangered species. Modern psychology has made “loving oneself” into a sort of Third Commandment rivaling the two great commandments of love of God and love of neighbor.
Many of the problems that have arisen in the celebration of the sacred liturgy since the 1960s can be traced in large part to a virtual repudiation of humility. This begins with the a priori assumption made by contemporary theologians that up until the 1960s Catholic liturgy was a maimed, impoverished tangle of unintelligible, senseless, and even superstitious rituals invented by our ignorant ancestors over the course of the Middle Ages and the Baroque Era as a means for the clergy to control the laity.
Then suddenly, in the 1960s, according to this fabricated narrative, that all-knowing and totally unshackled individual known as “modern man” at last discovered what “real worship” is. No longer would he consent to grovel before priests, or for that matter, even before God. Liturgical piety became redefined as the putting of oneself forward as much as possible in co-starring roles within the sanctuary.
Heretical Nonsense
Then there is the arrogant heretical nonsense that all the laity are concelebrating the Eucharist with the priest as if they equally possessed the power to confect the Sacrament. The penitential rite by which the priest and the faithful confess their sinfulness and unworthiness at the beginning of the Mass has been downplayed and even condemned as a harmful interruption in the Mass liturgy. “Liturgical options” offered in place of the recitation of the Confiteor have served to soften and even erase entirely this frank admission of our imperfection that is so embarrassing to the supremely self-confident and assertive “modern man.”
Yet genuine Catholic worship by definition is an act of humility. By it we acknowledge our creaturehood and that we owe God everything, absolutely everything. Genuine Catholic worship is incompatible with any thought that we are in any way superior in our liturgical understanding or practice to our forefathers.
Condemnatory narratives of the liturgy of the past, like other vilifications of the Church’s past, have a dark undercurrent about them. Often enough there is an element of hatred for the sacred — and such hatred is the work of the Devil.
A perusal of the one prayer Our Lord specifically taught His disciples clarifies what Catholic worship really ought to be. There is not one word in this prayer about loving ourselves, or seeking “empowerment,” or bragging about how “gifted” we are. Instead, the prayer begins with a profession of God’s transcendence (“…hallowed be Thy name…”), and continues with petitions for the accomplishment of His holy will and His sacred plans for the world, the supplying of all our necessities by Him, the forgiveness of our sins, and deliverance from all evil and temptations.
Humility is expressed repeatedly in the sacred liturgy, both in words and in actions. Exterior liturgical gestures of humility have taken a particularly hard hit in recent decades. It is truly disturbing to see just how many priests don’t seem to want to genuflect anymore, either limiting genuflection before the Blessed Sacrament to only when it is strictly required during the Mass and Benediction, or omitting it entirely, even when it is mandated during these liturgies. Can it really be that they all have a health impediment that prevents them from genuflecting?
Do those who have chosen to replace genuflection with a slight bob of the head toward the Tabernacle really understand what a liturgical bow of the head is supposed to signify? For in the sacred liturgy there have always been moments when a bow of the head is prescribed, not as a lame substitute for a genuflection, but rather as a “genuflection” of the noblest and topmost member of the body, the head, to express reverence in pronouncing a sacred name or sacred words, or as an act of reverence toward a sacred image.
A clue to the symbolism of this gesture is offered by a practice of the celebrant in the Traditional Latin Mass: the bowing of the head toward the altar crucifix. In doing this, the priest is mirroring the action of Our Lord Himself on the Cross, as the Jesuit spiritual writer Fr. Johann Brictius explains:
“ ‘And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost’ (John 19:30). In Ecclesiasticus [Sirach] 33, it is said, ‘…continual labors bow a slave” (Ecc. 33:27, Vulgate — Douay-Rheims), and they bow Jesus. He bowed Himself, when He bent down the heavens, and descended; He bowed Himself descending from the womb into the manger, from the manger into the sepulcher; He bowed Himself down, having been made the type of obedience and the exemplar of the profitable servant; at length with a bowed head He dies, as though putting His shoulder to carrying us and our burdens, says Hugh of Saint-Cher, as if He Himself had said, ‘I bow my head that you may see me prepared to carry your burdens, and you may place [them] upon me’; which very thing the royal Prophet may be seen to intimate in Psalm 37: ‘…my iniquities are gone over my head: and as a heavy burden are become heavy upon me….I am become miserable, and am bowed down…’ (Psalm 37:5, 7, Vulgate — Douay-Rheims).
“In this bowing of the head there is truly a great sign. He bends His head, under which they [His shoulders] are bowed, that carry the world. And when with the other members [of His body] it is not possible to exhibit humility, He commends it with a humiliation of His head. Lift up your downcast heads unto the realms of the spirit and look, because with His head bowed to you the Savior says that your redemption draws near. And you bow your heads, who as living beings of glory walk with your neck extended, and learn to be humbled under the mighty hand of God; the Son of God, who is God, equal to the Father, dies humble, and you a worm of earth puff [yourself] up over all…that head bows, when He dies — that head, I say, the seat of wisdom, the throne of glory, the crown of all majesty, which yesterday He threw down at the feet of Judah, today He bends to you, O worm of earth, stinking dog, plague of the world; and you lift up your feet, with which you shall mount to Heaven,…” (Fr. Johannes Brictius, SJ, Servus peccati in Christo pro nobis patiente repraesentatus, Braniewo, Poland, Collegium Societatis Jesu, 1710, p. 300).
In offering His sacrifice on the Cross for our salvation, Our Lord has set for us the ultimate example of humility and obedience. How then can we approach the re-presentation of that very sacrifice in the Mass with anything other than a deep spirit of humility and obedience? Hence compliance with the rubrics and official prayers of the sacred liturgy is vital. We must have the humility to receive the liturgy precisely as it has been handed down to us.
Priceless Beyond Measure
Perhaps the most egregious example of the modern loss of humility with regard to the sacred liturgy is the sacrilegious dismissal of the need to be in a state of grace in order to receive Holy Communion worthily. Implicit in this dismissive mentality is a fatally flawed perception of our relationship with God. The Holy Eucharist is not something God owes us — He owes us nothing. The Holy Eucharist is a gift, a privilege, priceless beyond measure. It is a Sacrament of love, God lovingly giving Himself to us. How can it be too much to ask that the communicant rid himself or herself of the poison of mortal sin by going to Confession before receiving such a priceless gift?
Humility opens our eyes to the shear wonder and grandeur of what God is doing for us and giving us in the sacred liturgy. In this regard, beautiful and fitting church architecture has a key role to play. Recently when I was at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, a non-Catholic woman who was visiting the cathedral with her daughter spoke to me of her utter awe in beholding the church’s interior.
Great gothic architecture fills the soul with an overwhelming sense of the transcendence of God and summons it to respond with humility. A majestic church interior, whether it be gothic, Baroque or classical, proclaims to our senses the infinite glory of our God, before whom we will want to humble ourselves. There is a great happiness to be discovered in the acknowledgment of our littleness and helplessness as creatures utterly dependent upon the mercy and goodness of God. A magnificent altar, glittering candlesticks, stained-glass windows teeming with colorful depictions of the saints, and soaring vaults above all invite us to this.
In his book about Spain’s Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo, the Escorial, the Hieronymite prior and historian Fray Francisco de los Santos (+1699) describes in vivid detail just such a humbling encounter with the monastery’s altar of relics:
“In opening the doors, drawing the silk veils, which are in front of them, Heaven is discovered. Through their orders, and steps, some deeper in, and others outside, can be seen different rows of very beautiful vessels, made of gold and silver, adorned with singular stones, with very fine crystals, crystalline glass, and other golden metals, which reverberating brightly, dazzle the eyes, and ignite the soul, instilling in it both fear and reverence, and does as naturally — or supernaturally, which is the truest thing — bend the knee, and bring the body down to the earth; each one of these reliquaries has seven main stairs, one rod distant from one another, and between every two steps, another one further in, for the better distribution of these divine jewels” (Fray Francisco de los Santos, Descripcion breve del Monasterio de S. Lorenzo el Real del Escorial: Unica Maravilla del Mundo, Madrid, Imprenta Real, 1657, fols. 35v-36r).
Humility has been defined as seeing ourselves as we truly are. But it also means seeing our role in the sacred liturgy as it truly is. In humility, then, “let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker” (Psalm 95:6).
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress