“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.