“The liturgy is not the property of anyone– neither the celebrant nor the community in which the mysteries are celebrated. The sacred liturgy is not a domain in which free exploration reigns. Liturgical abuses can be traced to the undue place given to spontaneity, or creativity, or perhaps a false idea of liberty, or even that error that goes by the name of ‘horizontalism,’ which consists in placing man at the center of the liturgical celebration instead of directing attention upward, that is toward Christ.”

The Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship, Cardinal Arinze, Oct 27 2006
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“The most important thing today is that we should regain respect for the Liturgy and for the fact that it is not to be manipulated. Things have got so far that groups are cobbling the Sunday Liturgy together for themselves.” Pope Benedict XVI when he was Cardinal, 2001
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What Cardinal Arinze and the Pope are outlining here is linked to my previous post ‘Headless Chicken’. When Christ is separated from the Church we get horizontalism in the Liturgy – where we stop looking at Our Lord and start looking at each other.
It is great to have deep friendships with our brothers and sisters in Christ, but what is not great is when, at Mass, we end up looking at each other rather than focusing on the sacrifice of Christ that is taking place on the Altar, and properly particpating in that act of worship and love of God.
The beauty of the traditional lay-out of the Catholic Church is that the whole congregation is looking towards Our Lord – everyone united in prayer looking towards Heaven.
Cardinal Arinze also rebuked priests who take an “overtly egocentric” approach to the liturgy, violating the norms of the Church by “banalization, desacralization, and secularization of the liturgy”. He also criticized priests whose “false humility” leads them to “share their role with the laity.”
When we understand what the Mass is we can begin to understand why it is important not to “play” with it. The Mass is the re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary to the Father, in the form of the Last Supper. It is not the renewal or re-enactment of the Last Supper. It is the un-bloody re-presentation of Christ’s saving offering, offered by the Church to the Father, and from this the graces of salvation are poured out on us.  So first and foremost, the Mass is a sacrifice, and secondly it is a communion with the victim who is immolated in that sacrifice – and that Communion is brought about by consuming the Immaculate Victim, which in turn draws us all into communion with one another…
I would like to use this post to encourage everybody to ask themselves (under inspiration of Cardinal Arinze) whether they truly respect the Liturgy (Mass) as the medium through which the salvation is applied to us – or whether they see it as a cultural expression where everybody gets to share a meal together.
“To speak of the Eucharist as the community meal is to cheapen it, for its price was the death of Christ” – Pope Benedict XVI when he was Cardinal, 1981.

When debating the teachings of the Church it is common to hear the argumentative separation of Jesus (the Head) from the Catholic Church (the Body) by stating that the teachings of the Catholic Church are somehow separate or different to the teachings of Jesus. As a body the head can never be separated (without deadly consequences)…

 
 The teachings of the Church ARE the teachings of Christ… they cannot be separated… The Church is the mystical body of Christ, all its members are being guided and directed by Christ the head, this was set forth by St. Paul in various passages, especially in Ephesians 4:4-13 (cf. John 15:5-8). The doctrine may be summarized as follows (www.newadvent.org)

 
? The members of the Church are bound together by a supernatural life given to them by Christ through the sacraments. Christ is the centre and source of life to whom we are all united, and who gives each one the gifts appropriate for his position in the body. These graces, form it into an ordered whole, whose parts are bound together like a system of ligaments and joints (Colossians 2:19).

 
? Through them, too, the Church has its growth and increase, growing in extension as it spreads through the world, and intensively as the individual Christian develops in himself the likeness of Christ.

 
? In virtue of this union the Church is the fullness or complement (pleroma) of Christ (Ephesians 1:23). It forms one whole with Him; and the Apostle even speaks of the Church as “Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12).
? This union between head and members is conserved and nourished by the Holy Eucharist. Through this sacrament our incorporation into the Body of Christ is outwardly symbolized and inwardly actualized; “We being many are one bread, one body; for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17).

 
Perhaps it would be easier to accept and take on board all the teachings of the Church if people better understood they are Christ’s teachings – that if Our Lord was on earth bodily in front of us now he would be saying the exact same things… because the teachings are His, what we are taught now is taught to us by the Living God through the body of His Church which He is head!