Go, the Mass has Ended

I was recently at Mass, during communion. Most were kneeling in prayer or in line to receive. But several were making their exit. Opening the transept door and letting in the bright sunlight literally spotlighted the families leaving early. Of course the old joke ran through my head: “Judas was the first to leave Mass early.”

As I watched more and more leave, it reminded me of a conversation I’d had with a man a few weeks ago—a devoted man who attends Mass and Bible studies—who, when talking about a Mass that might be going too long, said, “Well, people can just leave after they receive. Mass is over by then.”

Um, Mass is over by then? What does he think Mass is, if it’s over as Christ’s body is still lying on the altar, in the hands of ministers, on the tongues of the faithful? When does he think it ends? I thought these people leaving early just didn’t care, but now I thought that they might not even know what Mass is. I know there are a lot of poorly-catechized Catholics who love Jesus as best they know him yet have no clue what the Church actually believes.

How sad would it be to go every week to church and be in the very presence of God and not know it? To receive Jesus, transubstantiated, and think it was still just bread and a commemoration? To show up to get your prayers said and communion received and not recognize the communal nature of the Mass or respect the solemnity of that time and space? How many are there and don’t know what they’re part of?

Sometimes people need to leave early: uncompromising work schedules, rowdy children, illness. But when it’s dozens of people, I suspect most of the reasons are just apathy about the Mass and the desire to beat traffic to lunch. Are those extra 10 minutes really that important?

For the record: the Mass is ended when the priest or deacon announces, “The Mass is ended.” Even then, it’s polite to wait for the recessional before actually recessing. One doesn’t have to read the Summa to figure out when Mass ends.

And this isn’t to bash those leaving early. At least they’re there at all. Some part of them recognizes the importance of Mass. They care to some extent. But do they understand? If they did, how could they bounce like that?

Do any of us fully understand? If we did, how could our minds wander? Physically present but mentally checked out. How could we at times go through the motions or get distracted. If we fully understood, we would approach the altar on our knees, in awe every time. We would never want to leave.

Memento mori

“Remember you will die.” Memento mori isn’t just a phrase, it’s an entire theory and practice in the Church of reflecting on one’s mortality. By turning one’s attention to the fragility of this life, and the eternality of the next, one learns to shun worldly things and attractions and in place focuses on God and the soul.

There is a Daughter of St. Paul who has kept a skull on her desk for the past year and tweets about her reflections from memento mori.

Catholics have long been good about memento mori. Modern goths can only best appropriate medieval to Victorian Christian art. Churches built on the sites of martyrs, or using the bones as the building materials. Skulls, skeletons, and tombs carved on churches and tombs. Rubbing ashes on our foreheads. Death itself personified in danse macabre paintings. The memento mori theme also appears in liturgies, music, and poems.

It seems that times of death, such as war and plague, show a rise in memento mori focus. When death is out in the open, one has to address it. But it might be even more important to remember it in times when death is hidden, tucked away from daily life in hospitals and funeral homes.

I read on some forum recently, “The main purpose is to help people die properly. That’s the main reason to practice Christianity; to make sure that when you die, you do so the right way.”

Everyone will die. And we believe that is not the end. There is judgement, purgation, hell, heaven, resurrection, the world to come. So we must prepare. And that starts with death, the frivolity and vanity of earthly-minded things, and the importance of what comes next.

Remember you will die. Remember death. Remember its defeat.

Passively Praying

I complain about church music a lot. I want good music—sometimes for selfish reasons, but other times because the Mass deserves reverence. Catholicism is a physical faith; we should live as though we believe in the Incarnation. Lex orandi, lex credendi. How you engage your body and your senses in worship is both a reflection of your belief and a guide leading you to belief. Kneel, prostrate, bow, stand, make the sign of the Cross. Gaze upward into rafters and images of saints. Fill your ears with songs of reverence. Breathe in incense. Consume the flesh of Christ.

For the same reason, I often lament the lack of incense too. But it’s not supplemented by another artificial smell. There is either incense or not. Not so with music. I’d much rather have a Mass with no music than one with folksy, vapid lyrics or a thumping drum set. I try to block it out, to focus my mind on God, to pray over the noise, screaming inside my head, reminding myself that “God’s here anyway.” Not only does that type of music not assist me in worshipping; it’s an active distraction I have to fight against.

I shouldn’t have to fight at Mass. I’m so tired of fighting.

On days when the sticky dark cloud comes, I barely make it to church. Being there is all I can offer. I can’t pray. I have to rely on the liturgy to do that for me. And that’s what beautiful about the liturgy. It’s a prayer we’re offering up—the congregation, the universal Church, the angels and saints. If I can’t pull my own weight, the Church will carry me through. On better days, I can help.

I was told by a priest that went I can’t pray at home on those days to listen to music that could do the praying for me. Handel’s Chandos Anthems and Gregorian chants do help. I don’t want modern sounds and contemporary verbiage. I want to be taken into the sacred, my senses shown something beyond the weight of worldly living.

I was recently at a Mass on such a day, when the choir sang in acapella Latin. The song sounded familiar from my choir days but I couldn’t quite place it and I couldn’t quite translate it. But it was simple and beautiful and sacred. And since my mind couldn’t find words and my body couldn’t find energy, I let the choir do the praying for me, and I realized just how important that was. I did pray, through the music. I was drawn closer to God. It made a very bad day at least have a good Mass.

That wouldn’t have happened with the congregational hymns from late twentieth century that plague so many Masses. I don’t want to go into what makes music “good” or proper for Mass or how Sacrosanctum Concilium still places Gregorian chant in preference though. I do believe there is objectively better music that instructs our belief better than others. But for now, I just want to sit in a church when I’m broken and be able to pray.