How Can the Liturgy Be Improved?

by Letters Editor · Published October 14, 2022 · Updated October 14, 2022

Letter from Frits Rijkenberg, Howick – In many of our parishes, we see Sunday Mass mostly attended by older people. In Holland, the land of my birth, the Wormerveer church in which I was baptised is one of the 600 Church buildings — out of a total of 1600 — that have been sold. It has now been turned into a potter’s atelier. There are many other signs of a Church on the skids. So I, and many others, ask: “Where are we going wrong? Where are the young people? What can be done?”

Virtually the only contact many Catholics have today with the Church is through their attendance at Sunday Mass, even if parishes offer many other activities. So, to me, it is the Mass, and its content, that needs to be optimally presented around its most sacred core. That presentation needs to be appealing, impressive, wholesome, meaningful and informative to all age groups (or should we consider separate Masses for different age groups?). If this is lacking, it seems inevitable that Church attendance will continue to decline, and that more church buildings will be deconsecrated, sold and turned into secular accommodation or ateliers.

Jesus said at the Last Supper: “Do this in memory of me.” In a great flight of imagination, please picture that next Sunday Jesus himself comes to your parish church to say Mass. Would he don the Mass vestments? I cannot visualise Jesus in a green chasuble. Would he insist on presenting the rote we are exposed to every Sunday in many parishes? Would he expect from us the kneeling, standing, and the today-meaningless responses of “and with your spirit”, “under my roof”, and so on?

Or would he, around the most holy core of the Mass, weave a powerful message for you and me? Would he not keep our attention riveted? Would the young not want to come back for more, as the little ones did 2000 years ago?

The Church needs, most urgently, to rethink, examine, and restructure the Mass: returning it to the meal it was, decreasing the physical distance from the priest, changing the church-seating to one of a meal experience, and letting all vestments go the way of the maniple (remember it?) — they have served their role of impressing the laity of past generations. Remove almost all rote, increase laity participation beyond tokenism by involving the entire royal priesthood in a meaningful way, shed the meaningless physical exercises of standing, kneeling and sitting…

I plead for a commission/synod of members of the entire Royal Priesthood to investigate a bold new approach.

Having written this, I want to express my very sincere admiration for our pastors who, within the currently massive constraints of the liturgy, try so hard to provide excellent homilies that address the weekly needs of those in the pews. Perhaps because they themselves play such an active part in the Mass, they are somewhat unaware of our need for comprehensive change?

Prayerfully I plead: Quo vadis?

This letter was published in the July 2022 issue of The Southern Cross magazine