Small Catholic

Our pastor once mentioned in a homily that when he was in seminary, they were taught to use their own words (or ad lib) parts of the Mass. He stopped doing this after a conversation with a liturgist friend of his who convinced him of the rich, long history of the words used at Mass and the deep meaning they point to.

We sometimes have visiting priests from his generation say Mass at our parish, and a number of them still follow that tradition of ad-libbing. (They keep the essential words of the consecration the same, but follow along in the Missal and use different words that mean basically the same thing.)

Having this experience with a visiting priest this morning caused me to reflect on why this was once encouraged and taught and why it isn’t now.

Note: The following is my own reflection and speculation.

The most generous interpretation I came up with to understand the motivation behind the ad-libbing is that it can be a way of forcing the presider to stay completely present in the liturgy. If you’re following the words so closely that you can use other words as you go, that certainly takes a lot of concentration. And staying present is a very worthy goal; there’s definitely something to be said for that. Aside from these unfamiliar changes, the priest this morning seemed quite thoughtful and reverent.

There are two reasons that incline me towards the other direction.

1. Particularly with the rich history of the words found in the Roman Missal, I think most of the alternatives will turn out to be “less than” – less beautiful, less elevated, less meaningful, less accurate. Meal instead of banquet.
2. As we experienced this morning, these variations made it more confusing for the congregation to follow and there were a number of places where they simply didn’t know how to respond and needed to be prompted by the priest.

This second one, especially leads me to a concept that I only came across quite recently. Active participation, particularly together as a praying community, is an extremely important part of the Mass. And active participation is nearly impossible without some kind of consistency so that the congregation will know what and when to say and do what they are intended to say and do. Rubrics and structure are partly for the sake of unity.