With a freshly re-translated Missal of the Novus Ordo (“New Order”) Mass to hit Australian parishes by Pentecost, a US Cardinal has written a book to help deepen Catholics’ understanding of what’s happening on the altar. His hope is that, once you realise this, you’ll never be the same – and you’ll actually want to go to Mass …
By Mark Zimmermann
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON – Washington Cardinal Donald W Wuerl and author Mike Aquilina have teamed together to write a new book on the Mass, and they hope that their labour of love will enkindle a deeper love and devotion for the Mass among Catholics, and inspire them to share that love with others.
Titled The Mass: The Glory, the Mystery, the Tradition, and published by Doubleday, it was launched at a 1 February book signing that Cardinal Wuerl held at the bookstore of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
The signing, which drew more than 100 people, “was for me a very joyful experience,” said Cardinal Wuerl in an interview the next day with the Catholic Standard, the Archdiocesan newspaper.
“I did not anticipate there would be that many people, a whole range of Catholics from a university professor to a mother and her children, from a college student to a manual labourer,” he said. “The one thing they all shared in common was their desire to learn more about the Mass.”
Cardinal Wuerl said he senses a hunger among people to understand what is taking place in the Mass, and to experience the beauty of the Mass in a more profound way.
Helping Catholics have a deeper appreciation for the Mass is the “starting point of the book,’ he said, noting that the introduction begins, “The Mass is what Catholics do. It’s the heart of Catholic life, for individuals and for the community.”
In the interview, the Cardinal said, “The primary purpose for the book is to re-propose, to reintroduce people to the beauty and mystery of the Mass.”
Cardinal Wuerl noted that the effort is part of Pope Benedict XVI’s call for the new evangelisation, encouraging Catholics to deepen their faith and to share their love for Christ with others. “There are so many people who simply don’t know what the Mass is, what the Church understands the Mass to be, what this great gift of Jesus is,” he said.
Last fall, the Cardinal issued a pastoral letter on the new evangelisation, Disciples of the Lord: Sharing the Vision, and programmes promoting that effort are under way at parishes and schools throughout the Archdiocese.
Speaking about his new book, the Cardinal said, “I would hope that in the overall context of the new evangelisation, this book might reawaken in the hearts of our Catholic people a love for the Mass that would be so intense that they would tell other people who drifted away or who never heard what the Mass is all about.”
Cardinal Wuerl believes that the reason so many Catholics do not attend Mass each Sunday is “they were never sufficiently catechised, they never truly learned what is happening at the altar.”
“Once you realise that, once you understand and experience that, you want to be there,” he said.
“The reason some Catholics hold on so dearly to the Mass is because they do know this is the re-presentation of the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection.”
The Cardinal hopes that people will give the book to family members and friends, “people we know who should be with us at Mass” and invite them back to Mass. It was written to coincide with the use of the new English translation of the third edition of the Roman Missal, which begins in Australian parishes at Pentecost.
Cardinal Wuerl, the author of many books who has dedicated much of his life to teaching the faith, noted: “In all the materials our conference of Bishops has put out, we’ve said this is not a time to focus on rubrics or specific words, but on the meaning and wonder of the Mass itself.”
He said he envisions his book “being used in an RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) programme, in a parish religious education programme and in our Catholic schools”. He said he would also like to see all those different adult faith formation groups that meet in parishes using it to refresh their own understanding of the Mass.
In his foreword to the book, Archbishop Augustine Di Noia, secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, warned that Catholics should not let the Mass become so commonplace that they “go through the motions” unthinkingly. He wrote that in the Mass, “God is present as He promised He would be. This is the mystery of an event more significant, and more life giving, than the breaths we take.”
In a review of the book, Mgr Anthony F Sherman, former executive director of the Secretariat of Divine Worship at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, says the Cardinal and Aquilina have provided “us with an excellent and timely tool for a clear catechesis.”
The book “is a clear, concise, and very accessible explanation of the Mass that allows Catholics to enrich their understanding about the sacred liturgy and the Eucharist,” he said.
“The Mass is precisely suited for a broader liturgical formation for Catholics, something that is needed at this crucial time in the life of the Church in the United States,” Mgr Sherman said.
He calls the book’s language “exceptionally clear.” “With powerful pastoral sensitivity, this book puts into the hands of the average parishioner a fundamental introduction to the Mass,” Mgr Sherman added.
The book’s authors explain that by entering the mystery of the Mass, Catholics “are not bystanders, but participants.” The book explains the words and gestures used at Mass, and the sacred vessels used at the altar and the vestments worn by the priest, offering both frequent Massgoers and those new to the Mass a “user’s guide” to what is taking place.
In explaining the book’s title, Cardinal Wuerl said in the interview: “The glory speaks about our identification with Christ in the celebration of the Mass. “The mystery refers to the great Paschal Mystery, the death and resurrection of Jesus being made present at Mass, and the tradition is the realisation that what we’re doing is repeating what Jesus told us to do at the Last Supper, ‘Do this in memory of me.’” At every Mass, the Cardinal noted, “the mystery of our salvation is made present.” That story doesn’t end at the end of Mass,” said the Cardinal. “Every good gift we’ve received is not meant for ourselves. It’s meant to be shared and then, as the Mass concludes, we’re told, ‘Go, carry the fruit of this gift into the world, and as you’ve been changed, change the world.’”
The Mass: The Glory, the Mystery, the Tradition is available at The Record Bookshop.
l Relativism of Bible constitutes genuine crisis for Church – P14