Some Catholics today say that the Mass is becoming more like a Protestant service, and that it focuses more on the meal aspect than on the sacrificial aspect. That is exactly what the Church is trying to do, for good reason. It helps by looking at what the Second Vatican Council really was about and what its purpose was.
Maureen Sullivan explained in her book “Responses to 101 Questions on Vatican II” that in his opening address, Pope John XXIII said that the council’s goal was to eradicate the seeds of discord and to promote peace and the unity of all humankind, not to repeat traditional formulations or to condemn errors.
John XXIII wanted to go back to a more primitive, more pure Christianity, and one good way to do this was through the reform of the Mass because what the people believe is a consequence of how they pray.
Theologian Edward Schillebeeckx said that Vatican II “broke the clergy’s monopoly of the liturgy”. He explained: “Whereas it was formerly the priest’s affair, with the faithful no more than his clientele, the Council regards not only the priest but the entire Christian community, God’s people, as the subject of the liturgical celebration.” And it followed that if the people were doing the liturgy, they should be doing it in their own language.[1]
In the first session of the Council, a speech given by Bishop Emile Joseph DeSmedt of Bruges, Belgium, urged that the Church leave behind its juridicism, its clericalism, and its triumphalism. For his impassioned eloquence, he received the loudest and most sustained applause of the entire Council (bearing in mind that the people who attended the Council were mostly bishops from all around the world).
Bishop DeSmedt said that all forms of “triumphalism” should be avoided when talking about the Church. He was referring to a pompous and overbearing attitude that had little relation to the message of the New Testament. He claimed that “clericalism” was equally offensive, and that the Church is not a pyramid of pope, bishops, priests, nuns, and finally the laity; but rather the Church is the people of God.[2]
In other words, what the Council Fathers were trying to do was to give the Church back to the people of God by placing first-class citizenship on the laity, which explains why they placed the people of God in the first chapter of Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.
This is a radical change from the belief that it is better to be a religious or priest than to be a married lay person, for “all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity” (LG, n.40). Even today, this makes us rethink our Christian faith.
When Bishop DeSemdt spoke about triumphalism and clericalism as being offensive, but he didn’t mention offensive to whom. The term “ecumenical” not only means “worldwide”, but it also refers to the modern move towards the unity of all Christians. It is these Christians to whom the Church was offending with its triumphalism and clericalism, and to remove these two from the Church was to foster the way towards greater unity among Christians.
The pre-Vatican II official mindset was not interested in ecumenism. But John XXIII’s goal for Christian unity had a clear approach: the only way to foster Christian unity was to promote the return to the one true Church of Christ by those who had left it. And Catholics at that time viewed members of other Christian Churches as misguided people. An example is that before the Council, if Catholics even attended a Protestant wedding, they would incur automatic excommunication.
Coming to how this relates to the celebration of the Mass, the reason Mass shares many similarities with the services of our separated brethren, is because we want the Catholic Church to strive towards greater unity with our fellow Christian Churches.
In the book “Dining in the Kingdom of God: The origins of the Eucharist according to Luke”, author Eugene Laverdiere explains that a meal is not so much about food as it is about people. He points to the meal participant in Luke who asserts in 14:15, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the kingdom of God.” He adds that every meal with Jesus revealed aspects of the Eucharist and the Eucharist itself participates in the heavenly table, revealing it and promoting it.
To narrow the Holy Eucharist down to just a sacrifice negates the eschatological (end-times) meaning of the Eucharist. Reducing the Holy Eucharist to focus only on the sacrificial aspect is watering it down, for the Eucharist is both a meal and a sacrifice. One is not more important than the other.
So how does all this link up together? Well, by promoting the Eucharist as a meal, we are focusing on the people of God, because a meal is about people, not so much about the food.
To sum up, all these changes were made to (i) foster unity among the Christian Churches; (ii) emphasize the people of God, not the hierarchy. This is in essence what Vatican II is all about. To grasp this and to live it out is to follow the message of the New Testament, and to truly live in the spirit of Vatican II.
[1] Edward Schillebeechx, The Real Achievement of Vatican II, trans. H.J.J. Vaughan, [London: Herder and Herder, 1967], pp. 27-28
[2] Maureen Sullivan, Responses to 101 Questions on Vatican II, [St. Pauls, 2004] p. 44
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