This is a problem, I know, since the Eucharist is a communal event, a banquet, a celebration. It is not an exercise in personal, but in corporate prayer. At the same time it is sacred, solemn, sacrificial. It warrents silence, contemplation, worship, kneeling...an atmosphere of awe and reverence.
The liturgical wars of the last 75 years can be understood, in part, as the tension between the introvert and the extrovert, the banquet and the sacrifice, the intimate and the holy. The personal and the communal intermingle...with more or less emphasis on each.
My mother said that when she was raising the nine of us the single hour she had to herself all week was her Sunday morning 10 minute walk to Church, the silence of the mass, and the 10 minute walk home. She was the most extroverted, sociable and gregarious of creatures; but the number of personal interactions she had in a week (crying babies, dirty diapers, lunchs made...) numbered in the thousands. But Sunday mass was for her to enjoy a moment of quiet, solitude, alone-with-God. I identify.
I a myself an introvert, but not a pronounced one. I value my alone time: reading, walking, praying. The world I inhabit in this, my 75th year is one I have chosen and largely shaped...my work, family, friends...and within it I am active, outgoing, gregarious. But I am still an introvert. On a given day, my personal interactions...conversations, phone calls, emails, texts...may number 60 to 70 or even more. Far more than I need as an introvert.
We live in a world of relentless, totalitarian noise...loud, constant, dissonant. In the gym, doctor's office, elevator...every where we are subjected to the idiocy, the oppression of senseless, superficial noice!There is a lack of peace, quiet, serentity, solitude, contemplation. If we find ourselves suddenly free of external noise, the inner cacophony of compulsive-obessive thought patterns kicks in and genuine peace eludes us. Desperately we need training in quiet, in tranquity, in rest.
So, please:
No cheery "Good Morning" from the priest! We get those all morning. Go quietly into the sign of the cross!
No chatter in Church...allow the silence. We are in the Holy Presence!
Don't sit next to me unless you are my immediate family. Give me about 10 yards if possible. At least six feet. This is not about germs or viruses. I just need my space.
No hugs at the sign of peace! No wandering around the Church!So glad the Covid put an end to that.
No applause...Please...no matter how good the choir, the sermon, the ushers or the altar servers! Please!
After communion let's sit quietly for 5 minutes...yes 5 full minutes. Cut back on the sermon if you are rushed.
Do not...I repeat...Do not...insist tyranically that the people in the back seats move up to the front for that warm-and-fuzy, comfy feeling. For God's sake, leave them alone in their solitude. God is with them. They need God...not the warm, fuzzy feeling!
You can understand that my sympathies are with the Latin Mass communities. They are often eccentrics and introverts, desperate for a taste of the sacred, the silent, the solemn. Let them be! Pope Francis' attack on them is a violence of the extrovert, the congenial, the gregarious against the introvert, the solemn, the solitary.
A weakness of the new (50 years old), ordinary rite is: too many words! Too much articulation! Too little silence, repose, contemplation. The older traditions...silence, icons and images,kneeling, incense, a strange language...facilitated a relaxation of the cognitive, verbal brain and a gentle move into the receptive, contemplative,and the mystical. Standard liturgical practice apes our crude, noisy culture as it attempts to satisfy the craving for sensory stimulation but it fails miserably since it cannot compete with Netflix.
Please...give us a little peace, a little silence, a little solemnity at mass!
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