But Is It Correct?

Some years ago Rubricarius unearthed a complete Holy Week schedule for Westminster Cathedral in London, which provided full Offices, high Masses, and pontifical functions for every day of the Week in alignment with the praxis which prevailed from the High Middle Ages until 1955. Now a more generic weekly schedule from twenty-eight years prior in the same cathedral is making the rounds on the Blue Thing and liturgical journals. The schedule is remarkably full on many fronts, not just that the full Office was provided daily in recto tono (although it does say "sung" Vespers, which probably means chant) along with at least one high Mass, Confirmations, Baptisms, and the Churching of Women were so prevalent and in demand that they occurred at regularly scheduled times.

One of the odder features of the schedule, something quite spread throughout the pre-Conciliar world but not ubiquitous, was the irregularity of sermons and the practice of distributing Holy Communion outside of Mass. Some hardline commentators may be inclined to quite Counter-Reformation manuals which defend the medieval practice of only the priest communicating during Mass—something that happened due to laity fearing unworthy reception, not because the Church withheld the ciborium—but this writer for one finds this to be one of those strange pre-Conciliar practices that required some new thought.

Communion was an integral part of the Roman Mass from time immemorial until the Dark Ages began to give way to the Middle Ages in the 9th century or so. One chronicler, whose name eludes me, mentioned c.800 that the people of Rome used the fountains outside Saint Peter's to wash their hands in preparation for reception. Dr Laurence Hemming's brilliant Worship As Revelation describes the faithful bringing Holy Communion home in muslin bags for reception before the family meal throughout the week. Medieval piety, by contrast, emphasized the act of worship itself more than the Sacrament, perhaps because medieval man began to fear Communication in the state of sin more than those recently de-paganized people before him.

What is now called "frequent Communion" was not as uncommon in the Middle Ages as we now generally think. The Fourth Lateran Council required people to receive twice a year, once during Paschaltide and once at any other point, but this was merely a minimum. Duffy's Stripping of the Altars discovers several pious souls who made weekly Communions with the approval of their Confessors, who would feed them with the Heavenly Bread, not the celebrant of the Mass held at whichever altar in the parish that their own guild maintained. Infrequent Communion, now generally once a year and called "Easter Duty" seems more an unintentional product of the Counter-Reformation era, but not the Counter-Reformation itself. Jesuits and certain pious writers like Saint Francis de Sales favored a more frequent reception while Jansenists would have reduced Communion to an act of favoritism toward the righteous. The medieval custom was not necessarily wrong, but it was based on the assumption few people would receive at any given time. The more commonly monthly or biweekly Communions given in a 20th century cathedral would be ridiculous to hold at a side altar rather than within the context of Mass.

While the Westminster schedule provided for Communion between Masses it did not always provide a sermon. Modern Canon Law, unfortunately, does hold each Mass on Sundays and Holy Days to include a sermon whether we want one or not (can. 767.2). Canon 767.3 even asks for a weekday Mass sermon if people happen to be present, although the Pauline Mass, with Communion of 40 people, would not last 20 minutes without a sermon. The idea that a sermon is part of Mass is vastly accepted, well ingrained, and totally wrong. A sermon, or homily if I must, is part of the fundamental teaching authority of the bishop, not of a parish priest or curate. Priests were not permitted to preach without the explicit authorization of their ordinary until after Trent, and even then the faculty was used prudently. The bishop pontificates from a chair because the power to sit and speak—to pontificate—is proper to him and all responsibility for teaching the faithful eventually descends upon him, not the priest, whose main duty is to celebrate Mass, Baptize, and absolve sins in the bishop's absence. One could argue quite well that a sermon is a fundamental part of a pontifical Mass in the bishop's home diocese. To require a priest to preach at every Mass on every Sunday or Holy Day is to make him the bishop of his own parish, something Apostolic Succession says he is not.

One practical effect of making every Sunday and daily Mass into an opportunity for sermonizing is that the faith is rarely taught in a structured, catechetical way anymore. Parish schedules for the Archdiocese of Westminster in the 19th century typically put high Mass in the late morning, followed by some fellowship and a cathechism class around noon, and then Vespers and Benediction with a sermon around 3PM. Atomization in the Information Age and the availability of alternative forms of entertainment would certainly have broken up the coherence of these parish schedules to some extent, but today a poorly put together sermon full of platitudes about love is really all most people get. Narrowing the priest's teaching responsibilities to the fundamentals of the faith might ease his work and benefit the faithful more.

Besides, if every cleric can preach what will the Order of Preachers do?