Charismatic Liturgy?

One final problematic that I had, and have, with the Charismatic retreat and the movement in general will come as no surprise to those who know me—it is liturgical.

The Spirit working in our hearts will of course influence everything we do; including the Mass, but that does not mean that we have to celebrate Mass like “Charismatics” do. Remember God doesn’t force us, and in this case I think God doesn’t desire us to “act up,” because the Mass isn’t about me but we and the Three (the Trinity)! The Charisms are manifestations of God within us that we are meant to take into the world, and one authentic manifestation of the Spirit is art. The music that has come to be associated with the Charismatic movement is thus I think an authentic representation of this art, just as the medieval mystery plays, renaissances poems, Baroque operas were. However in every age the Church has fought to keep these secular forms out of the Churches public liturgy, because no matter how religiously themed they are, they are not religious art. Just like during that last week in Jerusalem the Apostles kept wanting to call the shots determining how the Lord would do things, this temptation exists in all ages of the Church.

“No lord you won’t die;” “No you can’t wash my feet;” “I don’t understand, its bread and wine, why is He calling it his body and blood(?);” “Lord I will never forsake you(!);” “surely you don’t me me (Judas)…

What the Apostles failed to realize, as we do today is that the Mass is God’s way of acting, it is God’s work. We can’t change the nature and tone of it, no matter how hard we try, because the Mass is meant to conform us to Him, not Him to us. The Mass is not praise and worship, its Jesus’ sacrifice of Love, and while there is clearly room for human genius to decorate the Mass, we are meant to decorate the elements that Jesus put in place not to create new elements and themes. This is why in all the Magisterial documents on Music in the Liturgy Gregorian Chant is proposed as prototypical, and all other music that is allowed is to be judged on its closeness to Gregorian Chant. Having experienced almost a dozen of the Oriental rites of the Catholic Church it is amazing how they all have the same elements, and how their traditional music is so similar, though often quite different from Gregorian Chant. Chant is the music of prayer-and nothing else. While secular people might listen to it to relax or meditate it by default puts you in a prayerful mood—some other music can do this, including some praise and worship—but no other genre does this in the same way. That’s why all 22 legitimate manifestations of the liturgy contain types of Chant. Anyway, I think it’s a mistake to use any music to the exclusion of Gregorian chant and it’s a mistake to disconnect the Liturgy from the tradition—I think Benedict supports me in these views. So while I might have grown in my openness to the Spirit this weekend I will just have to settle for being a sign of contradiction: a Traditional Charismatic Catholic Priests. What’s in a label anyway?